Before the blind league, I 'lost hope'
Players play with a ball that bounces while coaches and players' siblings score goals to help them aim for shots. Players shout “voy” (“I'm coming” in Spanish) to warn opponents of their approach and minimize injuries.
All players wear blindfolds to ensure they have the same visibility.
It's a way for players to regain confidence in their bodies, learn to move without fear and connect with other players who are going through similar challenges, says Madol.
After practice, Ellon enjoys drinks and biscuits with his friends off the field. He explains that he was born with eyes but started having vision problems when he was three years old. He said: “Many people said that I have been bewitched.”
The lack of medical professionals in South Sudan and the money to pay for them meant that Ellon did not receive the care she deserved; by the age of 12, he became blind.
As a child, he was a football fan but for the first two years of his blindness, he stayed at home. “I was disappointed and disappointed. I couldn't go to school. I lost hope, and not playing football was really bad. “
Ellon's mother, a nurse and civil servant, heard about the Rajap Center for the Blind in Juba. “I remember asking my mother, how did such a school come about?” “I didn't believe that I would meet so many people like me,” said Ellon. At that time, learning to walk without seeing was his biggest problem so his mother picked him up and left him at Rajap every day until he got his own way and learned to use a cane.
Soon, he learned braille, did well in tests and moved to a regular school in 2019. “There, I also changed the attitudes of teachers and students, after I learned for myself that disability is not a failure,” he says. Al Jazeera.