The Executive Director of the Community Empowerment for Progress Organization (CEPO), Edmund Yakani, has urged President Salva Kiir Mayardit to provide $75,000 for South Sudan’s national men’s blind football team, which is preparing for the African Division One Championship in Cairo, Egypt.
The team, known as the Bright Star Campaign, made history by winning the African Division Two championship in Kampala, Uganda. It beat established national sides and returned with medals, a trophy, the Golden Boot and the Golden Gloves.
Yakani said the team is struggling to raise the money to compete in Cairo, with a deadline of November 1 approaching.
“We have seen an aspect of financial discrimination against our national sports teams,” he said. “We are knocking at the doors of all government officials and the private sector; nobody is interested in putting that amount of money to make the South Sudan blind football team go to Cairo to compete for Division One, at which we believe they will also emerge champions.”
He said other national teams have received government support while the champions are still appealing to public institutions and the private sector.
Yakani tied the appeal to the president’s recent decision to make South Sudan a state party to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, calling the team’s funding “a practical test of your wisdom.”
The team’s Kampala trophy has already been presented to the country’s leadership.
Yakani said funding the team would also open the way to further international competition, including planned tournaments in Los Angeles, Brazil and Tajikistan.
He said the team feels neglected despite its achievements and urged the President, government officials and business leaders to step in before the Cairo deadline.
and then