A visually impaired campaigner in Bor town of Jonglei is appealing to the government and well-wishers to establish a training center for the empowerment of persons with the disability in the state.

Visual impairment also known as vision impairment refers to a decrease in the ability to see to a certain degree that causes problems not fixable by usual means.

Johnson Rec, 23, an activist for people living with the debility reportedly became visually impaired when he was 3 months old after developing problems with his sights.

He told Eye Radio that some visually impaired persons in the state find it difficult to access education because most schools there do not have braille materials.

“We don’t have a center where we can be taught so that we are like other people. There is one here in Juba for visually impaired but there in Bor it is not there completely”, Rec told Eye Radio in an interview on Monday.

“If this center is constructed or taken there to Bor, it will help us a lot, we will be self-reliant. This center also will help us to contribute to the society”, Rec lamented.

Health agencies including the World Health Organization estimates that about 150,000 people are vision impaired in South Sudan.

It is however, not clear how many people are living with the disability in each state including Jonglei.

According to the UN, of the 285 million visually impaired in the world, an estimated 19 million are children.

Only two percent of the visually impaired are educated.

The World Blind Union has often emphasized that blind and partially sighted people have the same universal rights and freedoms, including the right to life and full inclusion as equal citizens in society.

It stressed that they have the right to achieve their full economic, social, cultural, civil and political potential without restriction regardless of disability.