Still Standing [documentary]
#GLCFF2016 Official Selection
When Toyin Adesola was 6, a visit to the hospital confirmed that she was born with Sickle Cell Disorder. It was a discovery that would change her life forever.
In Nigeria, 150,000 babies are born every year with Sickle Cell Anaemia. Nigeria has the highest number of Sickle Cell cases in the world, and quite a number of these SCD patients die before reaching their reproductive age.
Those who survive face stigma, rejection from society and even parents, and some, due to SCD related complications, end up with permanent disabilities that prevent them from getting gainful employment and living a full life.
Life for Toyin became an unending cycle of hospital visits, surgeries and blood transfusions. One of those visits would end in a near-death experience that left a permanent disability on young Toyin.
“My greatest fear was that I would just die…without achieving anything…”
Toyin’s decision to confront her deepest fear is at the heart of this story. From fighting to go back to school, to finding God, and turning her crutch into a support system for other people living with SCD, this is the story of courage, faith, and the dogged determination of one woman to live a full life, and “die empty”.
#GLCFF2023 