Joanne is simply inspirational - World honours teen

IT IS astonishing to realise that Joanne O’Riordan, the inspiring young Irishwoman born without limbs, is still a teenager. She has achieved more in her 19 years on this earth than most people do in a lifetime.

It is also appropriate that she should have received, at the weekend, the prestigious award of Outstanding Young Person of the World at a ceremony in Japan.

It is the Japanese Buddhist philosopher Daisaku Ikeda who wrote: “A great revolution in just one single individual will help achieve a change in the destiny of a society and, further, will enable a change in the destiny of humankind.”