When Getty began losing her vision as a girl, she was told her life was over. Wrong!

Gertrude Oforiwa Fefoame of Ghana is the new chair of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities — the first African woman in that post. Asked to define disability, she says: "It is not the presence of the impairment, but it is the social and attitudinal barriers that are hindering our performance." (Ernest Ankomah for NPR)

Years ago, when some family and community members learned that young Gertrude Oforiwa Fefoame was losing her vision, they lamented, "How will you be anything in the future? Oh my Lord, is this the end for you?"

It was not.