Orientation of the football pitch before the start of a five-a-side blind football game. Photo: courtesy of Sally Feyi-Waboso.
Friend sets up blind football in Malawi
Cardiff and Cheltenham Meetings support Sight 2020 Direct charity
A member of Cardiff Meeting has set up a five-a-side football team for blind children in Malawi.
Andrew Feyi-Waboso, of Cardiff Meeting, introduced blind football to the south eastern area of Malawi through Sight 2020 Direct charity and with the support of Cardiff and Cheltenham Meetings.
Sally Feyi-Waboso, who helped set up the team, told the Friend: ‘Visually impaired young people lack sporting opportunities in Malawi and have up to five times the mortality rate of normal children. Engaging in blind football has been shown to improve confidence, self-esteem, and enhance social skills. A proportion of the visually impaired we work with have albinism, they lack melanin in their skin and eyes. In Malawi, Albinos are targeted for ritualistic killings.’
The Sight 2020 Direct charity planned to visit in March 2020 but it was postponed until 2021 due to the Covid-19 pandemic. In November 2019, however, ‘a group of six volunteers from Sight 2020 Direct were involved in blind football at St Montfort Special Needs Education college in Malawi,’ Sally Feyi-Waboso said. ‘In addition, there was a Training of Trainers programme where two teachers from eight different schools for visually impaired attended a week-long training programme where they were taught the skills and provided with a starter pack of blind footballs, goal posts, whistles and kit.’
One participant, Kalon, who went on to win a gold medal for a 100-metre sprint in Botswana as part of the SADC (Southern African Development Community) region paralympic games, said that blind football gave him the confidence to compete and to realise his sporting potential.
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