According to global estimates, 15 percent of the world’s population lives with disabilities.  In South Sudan that number may be as high as 1.2 million people and they form part of the largest minority in the country.

Prior to the country’s independence, people with disabilities were relegated to a sub-class of thousands without access to basic necessities such as education, housing accommodation, food, and public transportation; that most abled citizens take for granted.

The Interim Constitution of South Sudan provides for the protection of children and people with disabilities, but stakeholders made very little efforts to support their cause.

Arob Kuol Achuil, an 8-year-old teenage girl in Agurping village in Warrap’s Leer Payam battling aphasia that has robbed her of the ability to communicate is not exceptional.

Arob’s mother, Anger Majok Kuac and her father has four children, but only one, a 5-year-old girl, attends school because Arob’s parents are unable to raise the money for school fees and they said Arob is “dull”.

“We don’t have enough money for all of them and Arob is dumb, her brain cannot hold anything”, they said.

This is limiting her education. Beyond her physical difficulties, Arob suffers the emotional damage from her parents who have little time for their daughter.

This young girl Arob is only one example of those children who have no access to those parts of life that their able-bodied friends enjoy.

Mariano Akot is another child from Keen Primary school. Akot values his education he says he wants to study science and become a doctor someday.

“Education is very important because I want to help other people when I grow up and I want to study science so that I can become a doctor and treat the sick people in my community,” Akot said.

Like many children in the villages of South Sudan, he suffers from vision related problems that can be helped by a simple eye examination and a pair of eyeglasses. Until the eye problem is taken care of, chances of living his academic dream could diminish. 

Kuanyin Wek Kuanyin, Education Partners’ Coordinator in Warrap State says many organizations thatdeveloped initiatives to help, have not implemented such initiatives.

Universal Network for Knowledge and Empowerment Agency (UNKEA) as one of the National NGOs is working to change the story and is raising the funds needed to deal with the seemingly insurmountable obstacles faced by children with disabilities, not just for Warrap State but across South Sudan.

Joseph Manut, abandoned school when he was 21 because he says he could not crawl the distance between his home and the school.

Without a wheelchair, Manut would crawl for many kilometers before the road surface got too rough for his knees and forced him to give up and quit his education.

Now at 34 years old, he wants to go back to school, his dream is to become a preacher.

“I wanted to become a pastor and I wanted to preach the word of God because he is the only creator and I want to preach the word of forgiveness and I also want to preach that there is need to help those people in need so this is what the word of God says and in my community here, people are not doing that and if I become a pastor I have to make it happen,” he said.

But the stereotype of people with disabilities makes it almost impossible. He’s still treated inhumanely and has to share accommodations with goats and chickens.

“We don’t have sleeping materials such as blankets, mattresses, beds, bed sheets and torch and if we were able we would have even gone to the bush to cut woods and sell the materials in the market so we would be able to buy these things for ourselves,” he explained.     

“But with our situation we don’t have access to all those things and we don’t have people who are working to provide for us all our needs. So these are some of the challenges we disabled people do face here,” he added.

Manut said that they don’t have access to shelter simply because their relatives have a lot of people that they care about.

“We are just added to the support that is given to the rest so we are just considered later, we are not their first priority; we are not given the first priority in the community,” he laments.

Regina Abut Mac, mother to Manut says she worries about the safety of her son when he is away from home.

“I hope the treatment he’s getting will help him get better and I only wish that the school where my children attend had a good structure.”

Regina looks after Manut, an eight-year-old primary one child Arob Manut, who can’t properly see.

“The problem I have in class is that I don’t see well when the teacher writes on the black board unless I get too close to the black board but I can pronounce ABCD,” Manut said.

No organization has stepped up to help the family and other people experiencing the same problem within the State.

The government officials together with UNKAE toured Warrap State towards the end of November where their impact has already been felt by members of the community for facilitating and supporting at least 15 schools according to the Education Secretary-General of the defunct Gogrial State, Deborah Odwel Akech.

Akech said that during the tour, she realized that some of the communities are already complaining as to why UNKAEA is not reaching their areas.

“There is a huge demand by other communities that UNKAE is not supporting at the moment so UNKAE has to reach those areas,” she said.

Keen Agurpiny, Malek Ngok, and Mading kantok are among some of the Primary Schools receiving support from UKEA. However, coordinating meetings with members of the community is a tedious task, but authorities have always been cooperative with UNKEA. Still, some communities are not reached.

A teacher from Aguriping primary says the school does not have a feeding programme, causing many learners to drop out of school and because wages are so low, the few available teachers work almost on a voluntary basis until they eventually leave.

“The school’s learning facilities were makeshift and temporary and when it rained that meant the end of learning on that particular day. as pupils vacate the vandalized facilities and depart home”.

Malual fully supports the effort of UNKEA who he said, helped put up a more concrete structure for classroom learning which they did not have before, allowing the students to stay in class during rainy weather.

Nella Achuek Mabior is the UNKEA Adolescent Support Officer, she patrols the 15 schools supported by UNKEA and works with adolescent disabled girls who are bullied, mocked and called names by fellow learners. Achuek says the parents of these girls have given up on them.

“I talked to some of the parents, I encourage them to allow their girls to join school with the hope that one day they can do something. UNKEA has also taken some of the children to Wau and given them treatment, including the issuance of eye glasses to those with sight problem,” she said.

In Western Bhar-el-Gazaal, where UNKEA is also operating, hundreds of disadvantaged children are out of school. Joseph Akol Wek, UNKEA’s Field Coordinator in the State says community expectations are overwhelming as parents of disabled children without reliable sources of income look for sponsors to help get their children to school.

Rob Ojok, Head of Programmes at UNKEA, says they are working toward creating a healthy, well-educated, and economically advanced society, enjoying a decent, sustainable standard of living in a secure environment.

Mr.Ojok says UNKEA caters for children with disabilities because not all the children are attending school for a number or reasons, girls and children with disabilities are the most affected, and that the community is making little effort to ensure that all children are sent to school.

“Unfortunately, the lack of effort of primary stakeholders to ensure that all children are in schools is not proportionately applied between boys and girls or between children with disabilities and children without disabilities. Even the few who enroll in Primary one barely completed primary school cycle at the end of Primary eight.”

Ojok added that they are guided by several objectives, nonetheless the most crucial is to establish and facilitate learning centres and to provide an enabling environment in which all children should have equal opportunity and access to education.

“UNCAC would like to ensure that the school environments are disability-friendly and conducive for girls. A plan has been laid out to ensure that latrine facilities, classroom desks and access to learning facilities are provided to persons with special needs.

“Currently, these are lacking in almost all the rural schools. We intend to establish and strengthen child help desks for girls. We will provide shelter and basic support to young girls who face constraints in accessing learning.

“And the resources we obtain will go toward financing or facilitating this plan. Our interest is not only to attract more enrolment for girls and children with disabilities, but to sustain their school participation throughout the education cycle”.

UNKEA is a South Sudanese national organization founded in 2002 and operating within the country. The main objective of its establishment was to tackle the deadly Kala-azar, a chronic and potentially fatal disease which infects internal organs particularly the liver, spleen, bone marrow and lymph nodes due to infection by leishmania donovani.