Before the blind league, I ‘completely lost hope’
Participants in the game play with a rattling ball while coaches and players’ siblings hit the goalposts to help them aim. Players shout “voy” (“I’m coming” in Spanish) to warn opponents of their approach and reduce injuries.
All players wear blindfolds to ensure an equal level of vision.
It’s a way for players to regain confidence in their bodies, learn how to move without fear and connect with other players facing similar situations, says Madol.
After practice, Ellon enjoys a drink and biscuits with his teammates outside the field. He explains that he was born with sight, but started having vision problems around the age of three. “Many people said I was charmed,” he recalls.
The lack of health professionals in South Sudan and the money to pay for them meant that Ellon never received proper care; by the age of 12 he was blind.
He was an avid soccer player as a child, but for the first two years after his blindness, he was stuck at home. “I was frustrated and disappointed. I couldn’t go to school. I completely lost hope and not playing football was the worst of all.”
Ellon’s mother, a nurse and civil servant, eventually heard about the Rajap Center for the Blind in Juba. “I remember asking my mother how such a school is possible? I didn’t believe I would meet more people like me,” says Ellon. At that moment, learning to manage without sight was his biggest challenge, so his mother picked him up and drove him to Rajap every day until he got the hang of it and learned to use a cane.
He soon learned braille, did well in exams and transferred to a regular school in 2019. “There, I also changed the way of thinking of teachers and students, after I learned that disability is not inability,” he tells Al Jazeera.
