For the past year and a half, Bengt Yamada has been making the rounds of Tokyo's foreign embassies alongside people with disabilities, mostly children, to help tell their stories.

He hopes to have visited all 150 embassies to advocate for a truly barrier-free world by the time — pandemic-permitting — the rescheduled Tokyo Paralympics is held in the capital next year.

Yamada, who is of Japanese and Swedish parentage, began his odyssey after meeting a number of children with disabilities when his 9-year-old son was hospitalized for a congenital heart disorder some years ago.