No Barriers Festival starts today in Coconut Grove

Aimee Mullins, left, will deliver the Keynote Address to commence the 2009 No Barriers Festival being hosted at Shake-A-Leg Miami’s sea base in Coconut Grove starting today, June 4 and running through June 7.

Mullins, a bilateral below-the-knee amputee and world-class athlete, activist, actress and model, will challenge society’s perceptions of disability by sharing stories of physical disability, courage, style and notoriety at the Opening Ceremony today.

The No Barriers Festival, a unique international, multi-day event that combines land and water-based adaptive sports with cutting-edge techniques and technologies, enables people with challenges to live as actively as possible and to break through their own personal barriers. The four-day Festival of symposiums, interactive clinics, keynote speakers, films, roundtables and innovations will strive to replace recurring perceptions about disability and personal challenges, with a renewed belief in what is and what will be possible.

A passionate speaker, Mullins’ direct words are as applicable both to the able-bodied and the disabled: "Beauty is when people radiate that they like themselves.” Her life supports her message. Mullins' legs were amputated as an infant, but with the help of the most advanced artificial prosthetics, she learned to walk then run. Mullins set world records in the 100-meter, 200-meter dash and the long jump at the Paralympics in Atlanta, GA, in 1996, and changed the way people view people with disabilities in the years since.

Her passion for running is equaled only by her drive and determination to make a difference in whatever she pursues. She says, "I want to do projects that challenge people's ideas of beauty and the myth that disabled people are less capable, less interesting. I want to expose people to disability as something that they can't pity or fear or closet, but something that they accept and maybe want to emulate."

For more information on the 2009 No Barriers Festival, visit www.nobarriersusa.org. To learn more about Aimee Mullins visit her website at www.aimeemullins.com.

Photo by Reven Wurman