Transcript for Equal Opportunity for All

The video starts with soft, hopeful guitar music, mixed with some trumpet. Cut to a metal gate. Solomon Olakunle Okelola opens the gate and walks through. He is wearing a green button-down shirt and brown pants and has a headset around his neck. He is carrying a white cane. Okelola is a Nigerian man with closely cropped hair. He is DeafBlind.

“My name is Solomon Olakunle Okelola,” he says. He closes the gate behind him.

Cut to Okelola sitting in an interview. He is wearing a red turtleneck shirt and a hearing aid in one ear. The interview background is a white, shimmery curtain with diagonal stripes of brown and tan. “And I am the executive director Lionheart Ability Leaders International Foundation.”

Okelola locks the gate and, using his cane, walks toward the building. “Lionheart Ability Leaders International Foundation is a non-governmental organization of patriotic citizens who have the zeal to work together to make a difference in their society with special regard to individuals with disabilities – women and children.”

Okelola is standing at the bottom of the stairs. “Some people think DeafBlind cannot climb the staircase. Here we go!” he says. Okelola folds up his cane and starts walking up the stairs. When he gets to the top, he swings from a bar: “Here we are!”

Cut to inside the Lionheart offices. A man stands at a table, talking with staff. “We work to enlighten the general public and the government about the ability of individuals living with disability about the true nature and need of these individuals and how everybody can join hands together to provide for these needs with the aim of giving these individuals ample opportunity to lead meaningful and productive lives in their society,” says Okelola. More shots from inside the office. A man with dark sunglasses sits in a chair. He has a mask around his neck and is wearing a brown striped, short-sleeve polo shirt. He is talking with the man standing at the table. A woman with albinism looks at her phone. She has long, brownish-red hair and is wearing a pink shirt and sunglasses on her head. Another woman with large glasses and her hair piled into bun smiles at the camera. She is wearing a pink, frilly blouse.

Cut to the man with dark sunglasses sitting in the chair. Okelola says, “We work to equip people with the communication, interpersonal and emotional intelligence that will enable them to live peacefully one with another to bring out the best of themselves for self-actualization and for societal progress and transformation.”

Cut to Okelola swinging from the bar at the top of the stairs. He says, “And!” He drops his cane, and it clatters down the stairs. “I think we have to do that one again,” he says. Someone laughs off-camera.

A quick fade to black, and then these words come onscreen: Copyright @2021 Lionheart Ability Leaders International Foundation. All rights reserved.