“Rwanda’s Road to Rio” chronicles Dutch coach Peter Karreman’s audacious mission to build Africa’s first Paralympic qualifying women’s sports team from scratch – Rwanda’s National Women’s Sitting Volleyball team competing in Rio 2016. Starting with novices facing stigma, poverty, and poor infrastructure, Karreman’s relentless camps in Rwanda, Slovenia, the Netherlands, and China forged raw talent into a team that stunned the world. The book exposes systemic barriers for disabled African women and proves sport’s transformative power: boosting mobility, health, confidence, and global exposure. Rwanda’s National Paralympic Committee turned Sitting Volleyball into a national catalyst, shattering sub-Saharan exclusion and inspiring grassroots programs across Africa. The project seeded federations, classification reforms, and inclusive leagues continent-wide. Globally, it redefines development: low-resource nations can leapfrog to elite levels through vision, partnerships and cultural exchange. One small country’s triumph rewrote Africa’s sporting narrative and lit a torch for the next thousand hills to rise.

World ParaVolley proudly champions this legacy and the example it sets for development.

Read Peter Karreman’s book Rwanda’s Road to Rio here