In the year 2000, the founder Cazle Hendricks was involved in a tragic accident where he was hit by a car as a pedestrian. As he was lying in bed with his whole body brutally injured, at that point he was desperately praying for some sort of miracle to save his arm but that was never meant to be because the future that he saw for himself, the Lord had other plans for his life.

The day he was informed while in hospital that his arm was about to amputated, was the darkest day of his life. He felt like the world was closing down on him. After he awoke from the operation that robbed him of his arm, lying on the hospital bed, the first thing that he noticed is that his arm was gone and it was as if he couldn’t breathe because he awoke to an unknown world, not knowing what to expect, not knowing what to do. While most people would have chosen not to live, he chose to live. Weeks went by in hospital that allowed him to make peace of his new status as a person with a disability. He realised that the Lord saved his life for a bigger purpose.

During recovery, both in and outside of hospital, he was introduced to the medium sport as a form of rehabilitation sports for disabilities. He can clearly remember his first experience of rehabilitation and today he can laugh about it. While in gym, he was doing a bench press with a dumb bell and while holding an 8kg dumb bell in one hand, it pulled him straight off the bench but today he can do a 40kg dumb bell bench press and from this he can see how the Lord carried him through the years.

It was at Kutzemburg athletic stadium one Saturday morning in 2004, while preparing to take part in the South African National Championships, while sitting at the stadium very early in the morning enthusiastic about his new sport, his new way of re-integrating himself into society, a person came onto the field in a wheel chair with no legs but so full of joy. That morning he began to cry. His heart was full of joy and thankfulness and appreciation. He said “thank You Lord, I only lost my arm, Thank You Lord that You saved my life.” He was fortunate to be an aspiring athlete taking part in different regional and national levels in athletics. In a world, which he thought was dark, a whole new world opened for me. As a person with a disability, he can also now make a difference to other persons with disabilities. During my first few years of being a person living with disability, he experienced a lot of hostile behaviour from society, individuals and community, criticism, discrimination, a society that was loaded with barriers that hindered participation to economy and society with disability. He saw a need to remove this societal barriers and allow persons with barriers to be equal participants, to express themselves, to show case their abilities in society. He shared his vision with a friend and they were brain storming what can they do to make this vision a reality. He decided to start an organisation for persons with disabilities that allows them a platform to have a voice as equal participants in society, to allow them the platform to participate in sport, in the economy, in dialogue forums, in community endeavours, events and to show case persons for their abilities and not their disabilities.  He was and is a fan of the Lion King and one of the key songs in the Lion King is HakunaMatata.

We should live in a world where they can truly say “I am Oppie Bol” meaning “Everything is all right” “Everything will be all right”.