Basketball on wheels
Vientiane, Laos
A radio piece from Vientiane for the now defunct World Vision Report. In Laos, the sport of wheelchair basketball has become a source of strength for one athlete, who had spent his life living in the shadows.
"I just felt like I was different from others," says Samnieng Thommavong, whose extended family shunned him when he lost the use of a leg to polio as a child. "I even felt that I was not fully a human being."
An estimated 80 percent of the world's people with disabilities live in the developing world, and they face dramatically more significant challenges compared to those in the western world. State support is inadequate in many cash-strapped developing countries, and healthcare is often expensive and inaccessible.
