“No limits. No excuses.”
That’s the message breakdancer Luca “Lazylegz” Patuelli left with students at the third annual Empowerment Day on May 4.
“It’s incredible seeing how everybody reacts to the stories,” said Drayton Heights Public School student council member Mandy De Vries.
“Just to hear everybody that is speaking is really amazing,” added Halle Detweiler, also on the Drayton Heights student council. “It’s really inspirational.”
Empowerment Day began in 2015 as a passion project of two students on the Drayton Heights student council.
The first year saw 1,300 Grade 6 to 8 students at PMD arena in Drayton.
Last year the event grew to over 3,000 students at the Fergus Sportsplex and this year the inspirational day grew to more than 5,000 students at the Sleeman Centre in Guelph.
Though the event has grown exponentially over three years, the Drayton Heights student council is still responsible for organizing the day.
“This came into action probably around September for most of us and it was getting scripts ready and organizing speakers and making sure that this day is going to work for everyone and make sure that it actually means something,” said student council member Abby Culp, also one of the day’s emcees.
Though teachers decided on who the speakers would be, it was the students who organized the day, set up the event and wrote all of the scripts, explained Reeghan Rumph, a student council member
“It seems kind of crazy because yesterday … (when) most of us came it was all empty and we had to set up chairs and everything,” said student council member Melanie Giles. “And now that everyone’s here it’s like wow there’s more than 5,000 students here.”
This year there were more than 40 student council members involved in organizing Empowerment Day.
Culp, Rumph and Giles, all in Grade 8, said this year they trained Grade 7 council members so they know what to expect next year.
De Vries and Detweiler are two of those Grade 7 students.
“I knew from the beginning that I wanted to help out some year because it’s just so neat to see from the beginning how everything gets done and then the day comes and you get to be part of it,” De Vries said.
“It’s really amazing.”
Detweiler added, “My sister used to be involved in this and I always thought, ‘Wow, that’s so amazing to inspire people and to help out with this event,’” Detweiler said. “And to see it all come together is just amazing.”
Wearing matching tutus to add even more fun to the day, De Vries and Detweiler introduced Patuelli and helped him complete a warm-up with the 5,000-plus students.
Patuelli’s message was that anyone can achieve any feat.
“I truly believe that we all have the power to accomplish anything we want in our lives but it’s the minute that we create an excuse and we tell ourselves that we can’t do something without even trying first, that’s when we’re creating limitation and that’s when we’re creating a barrier,” he told students.
“But if we give things a try, try our best, we’ll learn to do things our own way and then we’ll all have the power to accomplish anything we want.”
Patuelli has arthrogryposis, a bone and joint disorder that can affect the entire body. For Patuelli it is primarily his legs that are impacted and he uses crutches to walk.
He told students about the surgeries he had that improved his quality of life but took away his ability to skateboard, his one passion.
It was at that point, when he was 15 years old, he discovered breakdancing in his homeroom class. His friend pushed away the tables and showed Patuelli a backspin.
“When I … saw that move I thought that was the coolest move I had ever seen in my life,” Patuelli said. “Right away I knew I wanted to … learn how to dance like that.”
Shortly thereafter Patuelli went to a night club for a breakdancing competition and he found that he wanted to dance. He went to a corner, took of his leg braces and crawled to the circle where breakdancers were competing.
“I get into the middle of this circle and I’ve got about 200 people starting to stare at me,” he said.
“And I’ve got my heart that’s starting to beat a little bit faster and faster and I’m starting to get a little bit nervous and I even heard someone shout out ‘what the hell is this dog doing in the middle of the circle,’ and immediately I felt bullied, I felt intimidated and all I really wanted to do was to go crawl back to my leg braces, put them on and go home.
“But my father always taught me your first failure is not to try. So just by coming into the middle of the circle I just took the first step to try.”
By performing that night, Patuelli told students, the other dancers and audience made him feel accepted.
Throughout his more than 13 years of dancing professionally, Patuelli said he has adapted traditional breakdancing moves to incorporate his crutches as an extension of his arms.
Yet each day he said he’s using his legs more and more and is adding more footwork into his shows.
“Sometimes in our lives we might try to accomplish something and we’re not going to be able to succeed,” he said.
“Maybe those people next to us will be able to do those things without a problem … and we are trying and we are trying and we are not capable of doing that.
“And in those moments we might feel a little discouraged, we might feel like we want to quit and to be honest, those emotions, those feelings are completely normal.
“But you have to ask yourself if it’s something that you truly want and try to figure out a way to adapt yourself and figure out a way to do it your own way.”
Mariatu Kamara, UNICEF Canada’s special representative for children in armed conflict, agreed that it’s up to each individual to determine their life path.
“No matter what happens to you in life, just remember that where there’s a life there’s always hope – or the other way around,” she said.
“Never give up in life, never look down upon yourself and never think that it’s all over.”
Kamara was born in Sierra Leone and during the country’s civil war rebels cut off both of her hands.
“I don’t feel the need for revenge because that’s not my place,” she told students. “My place right now is to move forward.
“To move forward with hope and I’ve been doing so because I just believe that … an eye for an eye would make the whole world go blind and so we do not need to live in a blind world.”
Kamara encouraged students to value what they have in Canada and to forgive those who hurt them.
“Perhaps God took away my hands so I could touch the world with my heart, and I try to do that every single day that I have the opportunity,” she said.
In addition to Patuelli and Kamara, the students heard from Shane Koyczan, spoken word poet and author, and Chris Temple and Zach Ingrasci, award-winning documentary filmmakers and creators of Living on One Dollar and Salam Neighbor.
