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Living in poverty in Sierra Leone with a rare skin condition, Michaela thought she was doomed...

“

▼ Before being adopted, Michaela (far left) was rejected by several other couples. “Twelve families said no to her, so we decided to adopt her,” Elaine DePrince says. “She was the tiniest 4-year-old I’d ever seen in my life.”

{If you have a real-life story like Michaela’s, email j14@j14.com}

“Every day I can’t believe I’m here and that I get to do what I love,” Michaela tells J-14.

Adoption saved me!”

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Michaela’s brave journey to achieve her dreams!Beacon of hope “We piled into this car to go to the safe house in Guinea,” Mich says.

New life In the photo on the left, Michaela models the new clothes she got after leaving Sierra Leone. “The photo on the right is of Mia and me a few weeks after arriving in the U.S.,” Mich says. “We look so healthy!”

Leap of faith Michaela collaborated with her mom on Taking Flight, in bookstores October 14.

Her rock “When I met my mom, she was just so cute,” Michaela tells J-14. Their bond has only grown stronger!

Making her television debut All of Michaela’s hard work paid off when she performed on Dancing With the Stars in 2012.

Going after her dream “The first time I got to put on pointe shoes was when we were in TJ Maxx,” Michaela shares. “They were huge and I was like, ‘This is perfect!’”

First Thanksgiving “We’re admiring the turkey with our papa,” Michaela tells J-14. “Mama said it weighed more than me!”

Naturals “We’re performing our version of the party scene from the Nut- cracker,” Michaela says.

J ust 15 years ago, Mabinty Bangura was living in an orphan-age in civil-war-plagued Sierra

Leone, Africa. Her father was shot and killed by rebels when she was only 3, her mother died of starvation soon after, and little Mabinty was suffering from vitiligo, a disorder which caused her skin to appear blotchy and discolored. “My life was pretty much horrible,” Mabinty, whose name was later changed to Michaela, opens up to J-14. “I was treated badly by other children and adults because I had vitiligo. They thought of me as the devil’s child and told me that I wasn’t going to get adopted. It ruined my self-esteem for years.” The cruelty was never-ending. “We were ranked as numbers,” Michaela says about life in the orphanage. “One was the favorite, and 27 was the least favorite. I was 27, which meant I got the least amount of food and clothes.”

Getting inspired Tired of being put down by the people she was living with, Michaela often spent time outside, which is where she discovered a photograph that she says saved her life. “I found a magazine outside of the orphanage gate,” she explains. “It had a picture of a ballerina standing on her tippy-

toes on it. She was like a fairy that I’d

never seen before and the image was

absolutely magical for me! I thought if

I ever got adopted, I wanted to be like

her. She represented hope, dreams,

everything that I could possibly

dream of! I [ended up] ripping the

page out and I stuck it in my under-

wear, because I didn’t have any other

place to put it.”

Dream come trueShortly after Michaela stumbled upon

the magazine, her luck started to

change. The United Nations stepped

in to rescue her and other orphans

and take them to a safe house in

Guinea. Then, Michaela found out

that a couple from the United States

wanted to adopt her and her friend,

Mia. “I assumed that I wouldn’t be

adopted,” Michaela recalls. “But when

I was, I was like, ‘Yeah!’ It surprised

me that someone could be sweet to

the ‘devil’s child.’”

The world of balletLiving with her new parents, the

DePrinces, Michaela started to get

used to life in America. “[When I came

to the U.S.] I assumed everyone would

have pointe shoes,” she laughs about

her ballet dreams. “I even searched my

mom’s bag thinking she was going to

have my shoes all ready for me, but

she didn’t.” However, Michaela didn’t

have to wait long to put on a of pair ballet slippers. “I showed my mom the picture I found,” Michaela says, and after that, she was enrolled in her first ballet class. “I was really excited, but I was worried that people would judge me for my vitiligo. I made my mother buy me a long-sleeve turtleneck leotard so that the other children in my class wouldn’t see all of my white spots. But by the time I was 7 years old, I realized that if I was really serious about becoming a professional ballerina, I’d have to get over my reluctance to expose my spots.” From that point forward, Michaela never looked back. She practiced her craft nearly every day, and in 2012, graduated from the American Ballet Theatre’s Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis school in New York, and joined the Dance Theatre of Harlem. In 2013, she joined the junior company of the Dutch National Ballet, and now, she’s even releasing a book about her life (Taking Flight hits shelves October 14). Through it all, Michaela remains the same grounded girl who keeps dreaming big, and she’s intent on spreading her message of hope. “I have taught ballet in South Africa many times,” she gushes. “I want to open a school in Sierra Leone, and I want it to be a free school so kids don’t have to pay for it.” So inspiring!