Celebrities with Disabilities

Stephen Hawking

Stephen Hawking is a former professor at the Mathematics University of Cambridge. Hawking's first autobiography 'A Brief History in Time' gained international acclaim and even to this day is still considered a bestseller. Hawking contracted motor neurone disease in 1963, but did not allow this to detour him. He studied at Cambridge and went on to be brilliant researcher and professor at Gonville and Calus university. Wherein he won 12 honorary degrees. He was awarded a CBE in 1982 and was made a companion of Honour in 1989. Along with his many accolades, Hawking is a Fellow of the Royal Society and a member of the US National Academy of Sciences. He is also now director of research at the Centre of Theoretical Cosmology. Stephen Hawking makes it his dream to go into space someday. He has written many books and essays including General Relativity: An Einstein Centenary Survey and The Large Structure of Space and Time.

http://www.hawking.org.uk

Ralph Braun

Ralph Braun was born in 1940 and was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy at the age of 7. His parents were told by the doctors that their son would never live a normal life and would require around-the-clock care. Upon hearing this, Ralph was determined to prove them wrong. He was also equally poised and determined to make life easier for disabled people with his and similar disabilities. His first step towards this goal was to develop the world's first battery-powered scooter. This initial design eventually evolved into the world's first wheelchair lift, complete with with hand controls and installable inside vehicles. This ultimately led Ralph to create his own wheelchair company, Braun Ability, which manufactures and then distributes wheelchairs all across the globe. Even in his latter years, Ralph, still driven by his never ending ambition to give disabled people equal chances, mobility and prospects, created the Mobility Act of 2013.

http://www.braunability.com/ralph-braun/

Lenin Moreno

Lenin Moreno was the President of Ecuador from 2007 to 2013. On May17th 2004 in New York, Moreno went to the local store to buy beard. On his way back home, he was assaulted by a robber who shot him in the snipe, leaving him paralysed and unable to walk. During his recuperation Moreno witnessed the shocking discrimination and prejudice that people with his disability encounter in everyday life. He was also appalled at the treatment of people with disabilities in his home country of Ecuador, most of whom were only surviving on very little benefits and food hand outs, and the constant stigma in Ecuador that having a disability was seen as a divine punishment by God. This was a devastating shock to Moreno as he had come from an extremely wealthy family and had never before seen how badly disabled people were ostracised.

 Refusing to let his disability get him down, Moreno tried seeing the lighter side of life to mask his pain and, after two agonising years, finally got himself into a wheelchair. Moreno became a motivational speaker and encouraged people to change the way that they view disability. He also wrote five books on laughter therapy.

In 2007, he was elected President of Ecuador and set up Ecuador's first ever survey on disabled people. He sent surveyors into rural and remote parts of the country and found that most Ecuadorians with disabilities were living off $96 a year. In 2010, he took to the television in an effort to try to ease the fears of his people when Vice President Correa had been captured by coup plotters.

In the same year, he also won the Noble Peace Prize for assisting disabled people in Ecuador.  

http://legacy.pitchengine.com/eo_integration/lenin-moreno-paraplegic-vice-president-of-ecuador--nobel-prize-nominee

Theodore Roosevelt

Theodore Roosevelt, Jr was the 26th and youngest President of United States. He was also a soldier, historian and explorer. He also suffered from asthma and had difficulty breathing at times.  He was elected the President of the United States at 42 years old. He was liked by many of the American people for his energetic and "cowboy" persona, but at the same time he was also very courageous and fearless. He was very caring about the people and always tried to do good by his people and serve them with dignity and respect. 

During the Spanish-American war which was fought over control of the border between the US and the Gulf of Mexico, Roosevelt saw active service as lieutenant colonel of the Rough Riders Regiment. He even led the US attack against the Spanish forces in San Juan. 

Whilst in office, Roosevelt saw his Presidential position as a means of helping to solve the country's economic difficulties and bridging between the rich and the poor.  To help achieve this, Roosevelt fixed the need for a quick mode of transport between the Atlantic and the Pacific by installing the Panama Canal. This also prevented enemy nations from establishing military bases in the Caribbean and helped the US to intervene in Latin America.

Despite his typically hard-hitting and militaristic thinking, Roosevelt acted diplomatically during the Russo-Japanese war and even Goodwill aid all across the affected countries. For this selfless and noble act, he was awarded the Noble Prize.

He was also a big environmentalist and initiated various policies to protect the trees and to improve agricultural standards in the West. Perhaps one of the most iconic acts was when he went hunting in the woods and refused to shoot a baby bear. This act inspired the creation of the teddy bear toy that is very well known and popular even to this very day. 

http://www.biography.com/people/theodore-roosevelt-9463424

Donald Sutherland

Donald Sutherland is a famous Canadian actor with a media career that has lasted for over 40 years. In his early years, he was very sick. He had rheumatic fever, hepatitis and polio. As a distraction, Sutherland developed a love for media and script reading and has become a very successful actor and has appeared in more than 130 films. In 2000, Sutherland was nominated for a place on the Walk of Fame. He was known as Canada's youngest radio producer at 14. In 1967 he starred in The Dirty Dozen, in 1970 Sutherland starred as Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce in MASH the movie and as tank commander Sgt. Oddball in Kelly's Heroes. His most recent works are The Hunger Games and The Hunger Games: Catching Fire.

In 1958 Sutherland went to England to study at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. He then left in 1960. He was also very ill with Meningitis in 1979 and very nearly died and he claims to have actually reached the afterlife for a brief time. He also appeared in Invasion of the Body Snatchers in 1978 and it's remake in 1994. He was also nominated for three Best Picture Oscar for his work in three films: MASH in 1970, Ordinary People in 1980 and JFK in 1991. 

He thanks his various diseases, disabilities and health complications for his success throughout the years and once said that without it, he would not be where he is today.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000661/bio/