Story and photos by Jenny Davies
To mark International Day of Persons with Disabilities, Light for the World South Sudan’s Country Director, Sophia Mohammed, shares how their Disability Inclusion facilitators are travelling the length and breadth of the country with MAF to champion the rights of people living with Disabilities.
Just a few weeks ago, Sophia Mohammed disembarked a MAF plane after a short trip to Maridi to launch a new teacher training programme. After embarking on a similar programme in Juba, new teachers in Maridi will get the chance to learn sign language and braille.
'We flew with MAF to Maridi with representatives from the National Ministry of Education to launch a teacher training in braille and sign-language at the Maridi National Teachers Training Institute,' Sophia explains.
'The training is an initiative of the Ministry of Education that we are supporting financially and technically. It is a nine-month course that will be rolled out every year to make sure all the preservice teachers will graduate with knowledge of Braille and sign language.'
Achulube Stephen, Light for the World’s Programme Manager & Inclusive Education focal person, attended the launch and shares why training teachers is important.
'Why do we train teachers braille and sign language? Because they are going to be teaching children and student with disabilities who need to learn. It is important that teachers are well prepared not only as teachers but also equipped with knowledge about disabilities so they can help their students.'
The training is just one initiative being delivered under the Education Cannot Wait campaign, a multi-year resilience programme launched in 2023 that aims to provide safe and inclusive education to 328,136 crisis-affected learners across fourteen counties in South Sudan and has so far reached 4,046 children with disabilities.
'We have a project called Education Cannot Wait – to extend access education to every person in South Sudan – but particularly targeting persons with disabilities and girls.' Achulube Stephen, explains. 'In this programme we go from one part of the country to another – doing training, and conducting awareness, assessing the needs for disabled people, so they can go to school.'
Sophia is excited about the reach of the ECW project and the team of enthusiastic advocates helping to deliver change. 'We are working with 33 young people with different types of disabilities. Some of them are deaf. Some are blind. Some have a physical disability. These are our Disability Inclusion Facilitators,' Sofia shares.
Senior Disability Inclusion Facilitator Peter Kamis, shares more about their work.
'As a disability inclusion facilitator, our work in South Sudan is to create awareness about persons with disabilities and also to make sure that we make inclusion practical. We make sure that all the organisations that work in different fields are inclusive of the needs and requirements of persons with disability in terms of their programming and also their policies.'
To reach as many children as possible – Sophia’s team are often on the move. MAF is the airline of choice, she says.
‘Our Disability Facility Inclusion Facilitators regularly travel under the Education Cannot Wait programme to support some partners with trainings.’
‘We prefer MAF, in most cases, based on the recommendations that we get from our team, especially those ones with physical disabilities. They have an excellent experience of flying with MAF.
‘If they have a personal assistant, they always like to fly with MAF. They say they feel safe because of MAF’s positive attitude towards people with disabilities. That's the main reason that we really like to fly with MAF.
'Accessibility is always an issue. But when it comes to MAF, they always say, you guys have patience. Even if there is no lift to take them up to the plane, they said you take time. You give them time to adjust themselves,' Sophia says.
Sophia is a reluctant flier.
'Actually, myself as well, I don't like flying, but I feel safe with MAF. Flights are a necessity. Safety is the number one priority when you fly in South Sudan. Because of insecurity now our facilitators cannot go by road. MAF is helping us to reach the people we want to serve.'
Sophia cites delays and travel disruptions they often encounter with other airlines.
'One time even our one of our blind facilitators, flew to Pibor. Changes in schedule meant that one time he had to stay there almost for one month. And by the time he came back, he was really frustrated' she explains.
She has been encouraged by successes too.
'I remember one time, Bishop Pene from Yambio came to my office. He showed me a photo of his son who has a severe physical disability.
‘I told him, "We don't have projects in Yambio. But we can give you a modified tricycle to help him move around - but we can't transport for you because it might be expensive."
‘His reply was, don’t worry! MAF will transport it for me! Just give me the device.
‘Later, Bishop Pene sent me the photo. When I saw that child smiling and moving around his compound with the tricycle, I said, wow, that’s really good! Such kinds of support you don't get it easily from commercial or even humanitarian flights.'
Ensuring that disabled people have access to good services, requires good partnership working across the board.
'If you don’t hold hands, it’s very difficult to operate in South Sudan. The need is huge because these children are too many,' Sophia shares.
MAF is thankful for the feedback from facilitators that enables us to continuously improve our services to meet the needs of disabled passengers as well as encourage our staff.
MAF Partnership Development Manager Jaap de With has warm words to share.
'As MAF, we welcome the opportunity to fly for Light for the World. We value the important work you do championing the needs of persons with disabilities and to help make South Sudan a more inclusive place. We look forward to welcoming the team to the office to share your expertise on how we can make services more accessible. We hope we can continue to serve you well in South Sudan.'
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