Michael Panther: Lost ability to walk at 10 due to spinal TB

Michael Panther, founder of Hope Mobility International demonstrates a locally assembled paediatric wheelchair for children born with disabilities such as cerebral palsy. [Wilberforce Okwiri, Standard]

At 10 years old, Michael Panther could no longer run. “I remember getting tired very easily,” he says quietly. “My back hurts. My legs felt weak. Slowly, I could not move the way I used to.”

He was growing up in South Sudan at a time when war had hollowed out health systems and torn families apart. What began as fatigue and back pain slowly became something far more serious. “It did not happen in one day,” he says. “It was gradual. I just kept losing strength.”