UAE -Jasour- News Desk
Morad Shadeed overseeing the packaged boxes during the UAE Stands with Lebanon aid campaign as his daughter looks on at Expo City Dubai.
On World Polio Day observed on October 24, a Jordanian expat in the UAE shines as a polio champion who has made several strides in work and personal life despite being a wheelchair user. Morad Shadeed, 45, was diagnosed with polio at just eight months old after suffering from a severe fever back home. In 1982, his family moved to Dubai, following their father’s relocation.
“My father worked at a company in Dubai and got me admitted to Rashid Hospital for treatment,” Morad recalled. His treatment, which included surgery for both legs, went on for two years. Morad said he had been able to pull himself into a standing position before he was diagnosed with polio.
“After the treatment in Dubai, I was able to stand again when I was around five,” he recalled. After that, he began attending Salman Farsi Private School in Sharjah. At home, he either crawled or relied on his parents and elder sister for support. His father would lift him onto the school bus, and the bus attendant would carry him down. “My father kept a wheelchair in the school for me,” he said. In 1999, the family returned to Jordan, where Morad continued his education and began using a wheelchair regularly.
He first attended a special needs school, where he learnt to swim, before moving to a regular school, where he excelled academically, achieving top scores in high school — an accomplishment unmatched in his family. “I became the number one in studies in my high school. None in the family had achieved such high scores,” he said proudly. However, as he reached his teenage years, Morad’s muscles weakened more rapidly. By the time he completed his teenage years, the weakening of the muscles supporting his spine led to further complications, including kyphosis, or hunchback, due to deteriorating back muscles. “Then the wheelchair became an integral part of my life,” Morad recalled. He said he recognised that Dubai would be the best place for him to thrive.
