Rasheda Ali-Walsh to Address Graduating Class

Antonia Florence, assistant editor

Rasheda Ali-Walsh will be the featured speaker at Piedmont Virginia Community College’s (PVCC) 44th commencement exercises, being held at the John Paul Jones Arena on May 12, 2017.

Ali-Walsh is an international advocate for stem cell research.

She travels the globe speaking to raise awareness and funding to find a cure for Parkinson’s disease, the same disease which ravaged her father for the last 30 years of his life.

Muhammad Ali, famed heavyweight boxer whose career spanned three decades, retired from boxing in 1981. He then bought a horse farm in Rockfish Valley, Nelson County, in 1982 and maintained a strong presence in the Charlottesville area. Ali died from complications of Parkinson’s disease in 2016 at the age of 74.

When her young son had questions about his grandfather’s deteriorating condition, (during the elder Ali’s illness), Ali-Walsh wrote a book, I’ll Hold Your Hand So You Won’t Fall: A Child’s Guide to Parkinson’s Disease. Parkinson’s Disease affects its sufferers in various ways. Some have balance problems causing falls, and some lose the ability to speak clearly causing miscommunication and are no longer able to visibly express emotions.

The heavyweight boxing champion, Muhammad Ali wrote the foreword to the book. I’ll Hold Your Hand So You Won’t Fall is “written for adults to read to children, the book encourages dialogue through the use of colorful illustrations, situations depicting symptoms, and interactive questions. Medical facts are provided at the end of each page to help readers answer children’s questions with greater ease and specific terms are explained in the margin on each page,” according to Ali-Walsh’s website.