Anu didn’t know how they would react.
She was 7 years old and had just arrived at her school in Birmingham, England, with a pink sports prosthesis. She had lost her right leg shortly after birth, and that day her classmates were going to see her new “leg” for the first time.
The response wasn’t awkward at all. It was pure curiosity. “Is that your new pink leg?” one of her classmates asked as the others came closer to get a better look. Some let out a “wow”. Two of her friends hugged her. And shortly afterward, Anu ran off hand in hand with one of them, like any other girl at recess.
The prosthesis was provided thanks to a 1,5 million pound fund for the NHS, the British health service, which set aside resources to provide amputee children with sports prostheses. BBC Midlands told the story, and Business Insider picked it up in May 2017. The images ended up showing something much simpler than a prosthesis: a happy girl, surrounded by her friends.