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PART I - MEET DAVID AGUILAR

Translated from the original Spanish by Lawrence Schimel, Piece by Piece is jointly written by David Aguilar, a 24-year-old native of Andorra and his father, Ferran Aguilar. Published in 2022 by Amazon Crossing Kids [New York] in partnership with Amazon Crossing, the co-publication is an intimate and moving testimony of one family's experience living with a rare, congenital disease known as Poland Syndrome. In David's case, Poland Syndrome has prevented his right forearm and pectoral muscle from developing. He is the first-person narrator, telling his bitter-sweet, ultimately victorious story with quirkiness, comedy and as chapter headings, all kinds of curiosities. 3 examples: Breaking necks; No Rorschach Test; Explosions.

It begins with the shock of his birth. Bewilderment floods the natal ward. Anguish pierces the hearts of family members. But as they gaze upon the beautiful newborn, their alarm is no sooner superseded by an unshakeable love, one that overcomes. 9 years later, love for David is almost matched by the pride they feel when he builds for himself a giant arm out of LEGO bricks. 9 years after that, at 18, he improves on this feat, constructing the first ever fully functioning LEGO prosthetic which earns him, in 2017, a place in the Guinness Book of World Records. David Aguilar: Hall of Fame 2023 | Guinness World Records The full title of the memoir is brilliant: Piece by Piece: How I Built My Life (No Instructions Required). It is an invitation to witness David's courageous, lonely struggles at each stage of his development and to welcome him into our hearts. The struggles will soon transform into a campaign of protest with diff-ability, the term he coined, the blazing emblem of his movement.

David, the everyschoolboy, has friends (and enemies), sports he loves, girls he wants, and exams he will pass, fail, repeat and worry about, because he needs his bachillerato to get into university. But as the memoir progresses, a double life comes into being. With every landmark on the road to global recognition, he is becoming Hand Solo. The authors capture the drama of his transformation in LEGO images. Watching David break into a thousand LEGO pieces is a memorable one. It had me breaking into smiles, evoking as it does the on-screen mutations of superheroes of the Marvel Universe.

Making prostheses accessible and affordable for those around the world who need them the most, will not be his only astonishing legacy. Alongside constructing prostheses, how he sustains his campaign of protest across the globe, asserting and defending diff-ability, and how he has begun the transformation of the world's perception about limb difference, will occupy the lion's share of David Aguilar's legacy. Individuals, corporate bodies, multi-nationals and supranational allies across the globe have supported him in his uphill but hopeful commitment: he seeks to replace the debilitating term -disability - [so connoting of lack] - with the inspiration of adaptability and possibility. A commitment embodied in the solidarity brand he has created and named Hand Solo - after himself. [Visit www.handsolo.com]

Because the son's voice contains the distinctive notes of a child, readers will easily identify father, Ferran Aguilar's adult concerns, his excitement and hope as they assert themselves through the voice of his son. This layering of their thoughts adds dimension to the text of a memoir narrated by the son and landmarked by the father's efforts to ensure ingenuity and love combine to propel David from stage to stage into a life only fools or geniuses can dream of - one that will concede few to no limits. And a major goal of Piece by Piece is to showcase David's inventiveness and drive to liberate people, not as isolated possessions, but as gifts of transmission from his father. Banker, composer, inventor, Ferran filled his son's boyhood with life-enhancing oddities which he built himself - Made in Ferran. For example, David's first bike boasted, "a handlebar that ended in a sort of prosthesis made from black leather, concave like a small chalice". The little boy rode his studio-made tiger like the wind. Today, the electric scooter adapted with prosthetic which Ferran built for David to ferry himself as fast as he likes around campus, must be a familiar sight at the University of Catalunya (UIC) where David Aguilar is surely the most famous student of bioengineering.

Magical moments in the book were watching him work. I listened closely as he talked about the sensations he experiences, inventing, building, and it is as clear as the day to me that to invent for him is to breathe. I am enthralled by the mystery of giftedness. His gratitude towards the LEGO Group is boundless. Let me paraphrase him: it may not have been so easy without LEGO pieces, to develop my ability to construct things and to develop that instinct of sounds and lights I use to join piece to piece until I create something totally unexpected. He describes his ethos: "Trial and error was my creed, and as many ideas sprouted in my mind as there are colors and shapes of LEGO, forcing me to reconsider the entire assemblage if I found myself with any difficulty. Little by little it was less that dusty yellow LEGO helicopter and more the arm it still was yet to be"

Memories of construction work do not come to him in detailed, sequenced images of activity; instead, memories of building flood his heart exclusively in color and as colors: shades of yellow and orange - the colors of joy, the same joy he felt when he learned to ride that wonderful bicycle - Made in Ferran. From the yellow and orange lights of power, freedom and joy; from the fierce, (and at times comical) confrontations with school bullies, David's strength can suddenly wane, giving way to the darkness of defeat. " I want to go home. To take a break from everything, To forget about my body, underdeveloped, wrecked, deformed". These frequent oscillations in his moods are the threads out of which the memoir's emotional fabric is spun and this dramatic cycle will continue until global celebration of his cause comes, and a soaring spirit suffuses the book as it draws to a close. It is then that David will make his victorious declaration: "I managed to touch the stars by climbing a LEGO ladder put together piece by piece by myself"

PART II - HAND SOLO OF ANDORRA: AN INSPIRATION FOR 21st CENTURY AFRICA?

I wanted to launch into the new year with the publication of a powerful story: a normal kid whose father is a banker, whose mother is a travel agent, and whose life, overnight, became 'the craziest and unthinkable' fantasy of a life.

At just 24 years, David Aguilar has:

- In addition to 5 editions of the original MK-1, constructed 2 more record-breaking prosthetics for Beknur Zhanibekuly, an 8-year-old national of Kazakhstan, born with under-developed limbs. The eMK-Beknur prosthetics are the first functional foot-controlled LEGO prosthetic and the first functional LEGO prosthetic arm with a stylus

[Watch the video documentary about building the MK-1 here: Building a Prosthetic Arm With Lego (youtube.com) Click here

- Launched a global campaign to root out bullying which affects 33% of young people worldwide and to promote the inclusion of people with disabilities in society and in the work place

- Received the Silver Medal of the Ligue Universelle du Bien Public - with military honours - for his good works for humanity. He is the youngest person to have received this honour.

- Co-written his memoir, Piece by Piece now translated into 7 languages in order to inspire, motivate and raise global awareness about Diff-ability.

- Recorded a documentary entitled Mr. Hand Solo for which his father, Ferran, composed the song, Oh, Lego! It is available on Vodafone TV, Orange TV, Filmin and Rakuten platforms

- Become the face of LEGO's most ambitious, global campaign to date, #RebuildTheWorld

"Imagine", he writes in a LinkedIn post, "how we can transform the world thanks to the child we have inside. Imagine how we can help create a better world thanks to a #toy"

The Government of Andorra is visibly supportive of David's cause, choosing him in December 2023, to represent the country at a conference jointly organized with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). It was hosted to mark the 75th year anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the 30th anniversary of Andorra as a member state of the UN at the United Nations Office in Geneva. He delivered the keynote to an auditorium of UN officials and school children from across the Geneva canton. The theme: From bullying to building. In a public statement, the representative of Andorra's Permanent Mission in Geneva, Ferran Costa, affirmed that Andorra's Government is seeking to highlight people with disabilities who are public figures in order to serve as role models for the younger generations. Prior to David's visit to the UN, the Confederation of Businessmen of Andorra named him the best overseas ambassador of his country, underlining the utopian (and surely mercantile) vision of Andorra's Government.

Why should the businessmen of Andorra celebrate David Aguilar so fulsomely? My answer is why on earth would they not? He is a creator of cultural goods - consumer goods - which, to use UNESCO's definition, "convey ideas, symbols and ways of life". These goods can come in a myriad of forms: books, magazines, multimedia products, software, recordings, films, videos, audio-visual programs, fashion and craft. What transforms them into national treasures is their claim to being of great interest: historical, artistic or aesthetic. Social, vernacular or ethnological. Scientific, technical or industrial.

Let us not be naive: as the global economy transitions into a cultural economy, gifted inventors like David Aguilar, with their power to enrich our commonwealth, will acquire an increasingly high status. In a cultural economy, a high premium is placed on what each of us can do for the other and it is the David Aguilars of our world, with their life-enhancing and life-transforming goods and services to humanity, who will have the ears of kings and who will lead. That the book's Acknowledgements span 19 pages - lists upon lists of individuals and institutions - comes as no surprise. Browse with patience: many government agencies are named and no-one is left out of the Aguilars' hymn of gratitude for the support they have received.

Therefore, I have questions for the Nigerian government and for leaders of Nigerian industry and civil society: Given our 2019 law protecting disability rights, what is being done to protect the rights of people living with disability? Given the availability of a UN DESA toolkit designed specifically for Africa, how are we rebuilding our world for people living with disability? How are we making our cities and communities resilient, safe and inclusive for them? I see no movement towards the transformation of public facilities, no movement towards the facilitation of access. I am alarmed about the high figure attributed to this demographic: about 29 of our 195 million population. I am even more alarmed by how few of them I see, except on the streets. If they are children, I see them in formal care or health care institutions I have worked with - deserted by parents too destitute or too frightened by superstition or stigma to look after them. A world rebuilt to include them. When will that happen? When will we learn to recognize the latent powers of people who are differently abled - to use David Aguilar's term - and to see that they too can help transform our nation, our world?

My ultimate concern is for our youth: the [so-called] able-bodied who possess a far greater opportunity to demonstrate capacity. Are there structures available to support their bids to prosper in the cultural economy that is dawning? What kind of education are our children receiving? This is another area where David's story has powerful meaning.

My ability to push myself, my skill for building things. Read Piece by Piece and observe the regularity with which he uses this kind of language - persistent, stubborn, perseverance - to describe himself at work. An April 2018 article about him in the National Geographic captures David at work in 3 words: 'Ingenuity, Perseverance and Resilience'.

This is what STEAM education does: encourages innovation and ingenuity fueled by perseverance and I see that his secondary school, Colegio Sant Ermengol in Andorra la Vella, offers its students a course in technology.

My siblings and I missed out on the phenomenon of STEAM. In our day, no such programs were on offer. But this is the 21st century. African schoolchildren need STEAM's approaches integrated into their learning. They need its humanist vision and its capacity to guide them in relevant inquiry, in dialogue and in critical thinking. Within a 21st century economy, STEAM education is what our children need if they are going to be fired up for careers they are far less likely to discover without the kinds of programs it offers. It's immersive to watch - and feel - the progress and promise of David's work spinning around the spirit of STEAM - their axis. If public and private sector jobs prove insufficient to accommodate their exploding numbers, what promise do conventional African futures hold for 226 million young people? What promise when stifling education budgets cannot remotely accommodate the ambitious scope but urgent need for STEAM programs in the classroom?

With 60% of the entire continent aged below 25, what are we going to do with all of our young people?

This article is naive to promote a utopian ideal. It is naive to target Africa's government leaders, particularly those who administer education, social welfare, culture, science & technology and innovation sectors. By presenting a proactive 21st century family living with disability, the article is more hopeful about targeting parents anywhere whose spirits may flag while raising their differently abled child. Finally, my article is an outreach to young people across Africa. I hope they will read Piece by Piece, the story of David Aguilar of Andorra, and that they will be inspired by it. At 24, he is young. He has - like them - known intense frustration, pain, fear and he knew - for a while at least - the sensation of hopelessness in the face of what looked like the very difficult card life had dealt him.

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