Before the blind league, ‘I had totally lost hope’

Participants in the game play with a ball that jingles while coaches and siblings of players bang on goalposts to help them aim their shots. Players shout “voy” (“I’m coming” in Spanish) to warn opponents of their approach and minimise 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 bond with other players facing similar situations, says Madol.

After practice, Ellon enjoys drinks and biscuits with his teammates off the pitch. He explains that he was born with sight but started having vision issues about age three. “Many people said I was bewitched,” he recalls.

The lack of healthcare specialists in South Sudan and money to pay for them meant that Ellon never received proper care; by age 12, he had become blind.

As a child, he had been an avid footballer but for the first two years of his blindness, he was stuck at home. “I was frustrated and disappointed. I could not go to school. I totally lost hope, and not playing football was the worst part of it all.”

Ellon’s mother, a nurse and government official, eventually heard of the Rajap Center for the Blind in Juba. “I remember asking my mother, how was such a school possible? I didn’t believe I would meet more people like me,” Ellon says. At that point, learning to navigate without sight was his biggest challenge so his mother picked him up and dropped him off at Rajap each day until he got his bearings and learned to use a cane.

Soon, he had learned braille, was doing well in exams and transitioned to an ordinary school in 2019. “There, I was also changing teachers’ and students’ mindsets, after learning for myself that a disability is not an inability,” he tells Al Jazeera.