Page 26 - Tom Steyer Issue

M‘Lego Oma:’
A German grandma builds ramps from Lego to make businesses wheelchair-accessible
ost Germans have heard of Rita Ebel, better known as the ‘Lego Oma.’ With her short blonde pixie cut and a Hessian dialect, this 62- year-old grandmother is known all over the
With Rita, one doesn’t need to talk much but indeed laughs a lot. She radiates positivity and energy with every word, and to any negative question, Rita has an optimistic response even though her life hasn’t always been easy.
world for her wheelchair ramps made entirely from Legos. The ramps have become a tourist attraction in the city of Hanau, Germany, and beyond. Rita and her colorful ramps have been featured on numerous TV shows and newspapers. Rita spoke with ABILITY Magazine about her Lego ramps, her life as a wheelchair-user, accessibility and the challenges of building more than a dozen ramps with thousands of pieces of Legos.*
The 62-year-old has gone through rough patches.
Rita is quite the original
25 years ago, Rita was in a car accident and experienced an incomplete paralysis, which means that she can walk short distances with crutches, but most of the time, she uses a wheelchair. She was married twice and survived cancer. When asked about the tougher times in her past, she states: “There is no situation that is just bad. We all need to find this tiny good part in the negative circumstance ourselves.” Based on her life’s philosophy, of course, Rita wouldn’t let a lack of accessibility stop her in her tracks. Instead of complaining, she decided to take it upon herself to remove some of the barriers for wheelchair-users in her hometown, Hanau.
She picked up our Skype call with the words, ‘I really have no idea how to use this thing.” When asked to introduce herself, she accidentally used her last name from a previous marriage. Her husband interrupted and corrected her, and Rita burst out laughing. “We have only been married for 18 months,” she says. "He’s my third husband,” Rita added and smiled brightly, to which her husband responded, “Hopefully the last one.”
Then it all began...
26 ABILITY
Only a year ago, the quirky grandma became the popular ‘Lego Oma,’ when she started to build Lego