Workplace Cultural Diversity Training & Organization Development Programs

January 2010 Issue

Unsung Hero: Seun Adebiyi

In Search of a Match for Yale Graduate and Olympic Hopeful: Sean Adebiyi

Featured by NPR, the Huffington Post, and the NY Daily News – Seun has received recent attention for his dreams: to represent Nigeria in the 2014 Winter Olympics.

Seun Adebiyi's background is one that is filled with hard work, success, hope - and now the need for help from others.

26 year old Seun Adebiyi, originally from Nigeria, was a competitive swimmer for 16 years. Seun trained steadily, overcame a fractured back, and missed qualifying for the 2004 Summer Olympics by a mere fraction of a second.

Undaunted, Seun persevered and came up with a creative plan for how to represent Nigeria in the Olympics – through the sport of Skeleton (a sport that involves racing on a sled down an icy track). Seun made it his passion and aim to train for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Russia, and to be the first athlete to represent Nigeria at the Winter Olympics – ever.

An alumnus of Yale Law School , Seun received much support from colleagues and friends and strove to achieve this goal.However, these hopes were dashed when he was diagnosed with 2 rare and severe forms of cancer: lymphoblastic lymphoma and stem-cell leukemia. He found this out just days after he graduated from Yale. Now, Seun is in desperate need of a bone marrow donor whose match will supply a much needed transplant so he can continue to live.

In the same spirit of determination he has towards athletics and academics, Sean has now made it his goal to recruit 10,000 potential donors to the national bone marrow registry. He has been supported by celebrities such as the Grey's Anatomy actor Justin Chambers and the pop singer Rihanna.

Creating awareness about the need for bone marrow donors, especially from minority populations (only 8 percent of donors are of African ancestry), Seun has a YouTube video that expresses his request for all of us to get involved: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qtx00Wa6i1w

He has even flown back to Nigeria and established the country's first national bone marrow registry.

You can follow Seun at his blog at: http://nigeria2014.wordpress.com/ or on his Facebook page at: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Seun-Adebiyi/357162545590?ref=nf

For more information about Seun's journey to save lives and how you can help, please visit: http://www.dkmsamericas.org/drives/save-seun-adebiyi-and-thousands-other-lives

Sources:

NPR http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122314554

NY Daily News http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2010/01/09/2010-01-09_in_the_race_of_his_life_putting_everything_into_oly_dream_and_fighting_cancer.html