Meet the man who introduced blind football to Uganda
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Share, or rather, avoid? The blind football match at Nkisi stadium, Kampala in December, 2011.
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We all remember the story of Ugandan blind football player David Kalimera, and his coach John Mukaya, who was struck down by Cerebral Palsy and inspired millions of kids to play football.
Two years after Kalimera’s death his legacy lives on in Uganda. As Kidechya, one of the country’s top strikers, says: “You can still see the results.”
Mukoma is a hero, as is Kalimera’s father, Milton Kalimera. But how have football’s blind children been able to continue the game when the rest of the world doesn’t offer hope and a chance?
Mukoma and his father began practising football in 2006, after finding out Milton had a condition called Cerebral Palsy.
“When you have an injury in your body, you cannot just recover. It’s good to be injured but not good to be destroyed, you have to put in the time and wait to be healed,” he says.
This was when Mukoma realised that he had an opportunity to learn football. “The main thing for me was for Milton to be able to get up in the morning and be able to play football, it was just a matter of time,” he says.
Milton was then coached by Mukoma and Kalimera before they set up a football school in Kampala called Football Stars for the Blind.
In 2008, Mukoma founded Ndey, an organisation which aims to play football for the blind. Mukoma says that because of his father’s condition, “they have to learn the game with the blind.”
The story makes a great lesson in how you have to work for the things you want in life.
He says it has been a challenge, “but we are getting there now. It’s difficult to get the young players
