The pupils at Buluk Model Primary School engaged in different games were trained by teachers and community coaches on inclusive sports on Thursday.

The games had no boundaries as pupils who are living with disabilities and the abled ones both took part in the activity.

A total of 18 teachers from nine primary schools and two community coaches from the Internally Displaced Person’s camps in Juba attended the training organized by an organization known as Light for World.

The project officer of Light for World, Yakani Stephen, told the City Review that the training aims to target 90 teachers from 90 primary schools on skills of inclusive games and sports in Juba, Mundri, and Wau.

Stephen added that the purpose of engaging the teachers in inclusive games and sports programs is for the children with disabilities who are enrolled in the mainstream schools in the mentioned areas to equally participate in the sporting activities.

“We want to empower the teachers so that they will be able to accommodate children with different types of impairment in all types of games that are played in schools,” Stephen told The City Review in an interview.

“The main focus of the project is to create enabling environment for persons with disabilities through games and sports,” he added.

Yakani said they train the teachers based on the different types of games that are played in schools and they can adopt those activities to accommodate children with different types of impairments.

“Like children who are deaf, children who are blind, children who have intellectual impairments, children who have cases of epilepsy, children who are wheelchair users, and children who are tricycle users,” Stephen explained.

Stephen said they exploit all types of disabilities in the training so that when the teachers go back, they can be able to help children in their schools to actively engage in games and not feel isolated. 

“The purpose is to use sport as an opportunity to develop the potential of those children with disability so that they can also participate in the society in all aspects of life,” he further explained the program.

Identifying potential

The teachers are also trained on how to assess the children to identify their capabilities especially on the type of games they can allocate the child to participate in and safety regulations of sports that guide them.

Meanwhile, Simon Madol Akol, the head coach of the blind football team in South Sudan and disability and inclusive facilitator for the Light for the World, said they have football for the blind, and volleyball for the deaf; basketball for the wheelchairs among other sports.

Madol said they train for persons with hearing impairments through a sign language interpreter. They also have some rules that guide them from the start to the end for the blind.

He pointed out that it is difficult to train the kids who are deaf without a sign language interpreter especially when it comes to a situation where the coach may want to pass a message using body language.

Madol added that they use a word called ‘boy’, an international word used by the visually impaired players to know when another player has the ball to avoid fouls.

“Sometimes people may be wondering because it is a little bit strange to see who people are not seeing playing in the field,” said Madol.

“We also we have guides and each team needs to have three guides one in the goal the other in the other side of the goal and one in the middle to guide his teammates and we also have four players in the middle and two sides goalkeepers,” he added.