It’s funny you know, it might sound naive but I often forget that people end up becoming wheelchair users for reasons far more horrific than your average disability, or your usual car accidents. Not to make light of such situations, but it must be said that being the victim of a cluster bomb is far from a pleasant scenario. But that is, unfortunately, what happened to young Afghani refugee Soraj Habib, when he picked up what he thought was a spray can on the side of the road.

Now living in Wellington, Soraj spoke at a worldwide cluster munitions conference held at the Wellington Town Hall last week, urging the manufacturers of these deadly devices to stop production immediately.

“People laugh at me. They see me as a beggar. They pity me.

“I am asking you to work this week to ban the use, production, stockpiling and transfer of these weapons and to take action to help those affected.”

I guess I’m a sucker for a good comeback story, especially one where someone is trying to improve the lives of others by way of his own – albeit horrific – experiences. Hopefully his message gets through! You can read the full story over at stuff.co.nz.