Resilience and Representation

Resilience and Representation

Success stories inspired by the lives of Haven Faith Shepherd Kurt Fearnley Terry Fox

Haven Faith Shepherd

Haven was born in Vietnam in 2003. When she was 16 months old, her parents attempted family suicide by explosives. Haven survived but was left injured, and both of her legs were amputated below the knee. She was adopted by the Shepherd family in Missouri, and quickly developed a love for swimming. In 2020, Haven made the US Paralympic team and earned a fifth-place finish in Tokyo.

Haven views her life story as an incredible opportunity to change the meaning of being disabled or "handicapped." Haven has accumulated approximately 133k followers on Instagram and uses her platform to encourage individuals to embrace their uniqueness and be themselves without remorse. She advocates for Paralympic success to be celebrated with the same recognition and prominence as that of Olympians.

Kurt Fearnley

Kurt Fearnley was born in 1981 in Australia with sacral agenesis, missing the lower parts of his spine and the entirety of his sacrum. Doctors predicted he would live less than one week. However, he defied the odds and grew to become a renowned Paralympian.

Fearnley started wheelchair racing at 14. He began an elite racing career and has since won three Paralympic gold medals and three Commonwealth Games gold medals. He is a strong advocate for men's health and for increasing disability accessibility. In raising awareness for men's health, Fearnley crawled the Kokoda track in Papua New Guinea.

Fearnley was named the Young Australian of the Year in 2009 and the Australian of the Year in 2019. He was inducted into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame in 2023 and is the chair for the National Disability Insurance Agency. Fearnley has served on the boards of Paralympics Australia, Australian Volunteers International, and the Newcastle Permanent Charitable Foundation.

Terry Fox

Terry Fox was born in Canada in 1958. He was diagnosed with osteogenic sarcoma and underwent leg amputation and cancer treatment. Fox was heavily impacted by the suffering he both witnessed and experienced in the cancer wards. After the conclusion of his treatment, he began a Marathon of Hope, running across Canada and collecting donations for cancer research. On that trip, Fox visited more than 400 towns to share his story and mission. After 143 days of running and raising funds and awareness, Fox developed lung cancer. He'd raised over $24.17 million in the name of cancer research.

The Terry Fox Run

Fox continued to fundraise while fighting his second bout of cancer. He established the Terry Fox Run and, before his death, managed to collect $1 donations from every Canadian citizen. He passed away at the age of 22 in 1981.

The Terry Fox Run is a fall tradition in Canada, funding cancer research with an accumulation of over $850 million total in donations.

Insert a great video for your presentation and use this space to describe it. Multimedia content is essential in a presentation to leave everyone speechless. Additionally, this way you will summarize the content and entertain your audience.

Insert a great video for your presentation and use this space to describe it. Multimedia content is essential in a presentation to leave everyone speechless. Additionally, this way you will summarize the content and entertain your audience.