Meet Dr. Edi, the unlikely Nigerian optometrist.
Dr. Edi is an entrepreneur, activist and global citizen. She initially won us over with her charming Facebook audition video and then later showed up rather unprepared for our training expedition to Mt. Kenya back in May. She was was very unfit and lacked the mental toughness at the time to hike at altitude and succeed in reaching our 4300m destination. We had no choice but to turn her back partway for her own safety.
I’ve just spent the last 3 days with her, visiting her family in eastern Nigeria, traveling the Nigerian roads, attending albinism awareness events, touring her clinic, meeting her friends and neighbors and telling her unlikely story of being a person with albinism turned optometrist. Few drive, all fave challenges with their low vision and even Dr. Edi herself said that initially it seemed ‘ridiculous’, yet here she is, thriving, running her own successful clinic and treating patients regularly while inspiring young persons with albinism along the way.
My Kenyan guides and I made the call back in May to turn her around. That life lesson has shaped a very different person. An athlete. One that has been training seriously, running in the streets, a woman who bought a treadmill and who spends hours walking with a backpack, simulating stair climbing and who has taken full control of her own success story on Mt. Kilimanjaro this fall.
I’m very proud of her and incredibly honored to have her on our team, not only as a role model for persons with albinism, but for all of us who dream and aspire to be the best version of ourselves.
Another successful shoot and piece of the storytelling puzzle collected for our feature length documentary.