Moroccan junior chef takes social media by storm

Omar Archane, a thirteen year old Moroccan is bound to a wheelchair but has become a local celebrity after posting videos of his cooking online.

He was diagnosed with myopathy at birth, a rare disease that stiffens muscle fibres and limits the use of one’s limbs.

Thousands of people have watched videos of him on Facebook and Youtube while he prepares simple meals and shares recipes.

“I began cooking, because I am a cook, I began cooking at five. And I began my Facebook channel and my YouTube channel at seven-years-old. Why? Because I have to use my hands because I can’t walk. I can’t move my legs. So, I have a sickness that is called myopathy. And, like, I don’t have a lot of muscles” , he said.

His mother, Loubna Lachkar taught him to bake bread after his doctors recommended various physical activities to train his fingers. She begun posting those videos to social media.

“I won’t hide the truth, we did live through a period of sadness and tears. At some point we had to ask ourselves what we were doing and where we were heading – that was the moment that Omar’s story began. I told Omar to see everything negative, from a positive angle, even though I wasn’t there myself. Was I right? With time, Omar began showing me that it was all true. It’s up to us to decide whether we will live in a negative or positive society. Negative things have to be seen in a positive light so that we can live positively”, Lachkar added.

Ever optimistic, Omar even leads cooking classes in his school.

“My advice is to keep smiling with the heart, not with the lips. Second thing, to stay positive, like, to see everything nicely not badly. And third thing is to keep hope. Because if you want to do something, you will have to retry it and retry it till you get to it,” Omar said.

Omar has won a variety of awards, including ‘Personality of the Year’, at Morocco’s Web Awards.

Someday, he hopes to become a international professional chef and possibly manage a football team.