PASSOBO is a sport body for people living with physical, vision, and intellectual disabilities. Speaking to MmegiSport, PASSOBO vice president, Monty Ratlou, said the Paralympic National Committee should be treated the same as the BNOC, with sporting codes underneath. He said the first thing is for the sport leadership to understand the Para Sport. “The problem is that we are treated like any other sporting code. The leadership must position the Paralympic National Committee where it should be. When we have it, resources will be there and we will be able to resuscitate the Para Sport such as wheelchair tennis, wheelchair basketball, power lifting, and blind football,” he said. Ratlou said it was deliberate to set up the BNOC and, therefore, they can do the same with the Paralympic National Committee.
He observed that lack of facilities is a challenge for people living with disabilities. Ratlou said there are no public playing fields for sport such as blind football and the only available ones are privately owned. Blind football is an adaptation of football for athletes with vision impairment played with an audible ball. “The majority of the blind are based in Mochudi. There is no venue to play blind football. It is a complicated game and you cannot just play it in a dusty field used to play community football. Each pitch should be surrounded by kick-boards, a physical barrier that indicates the boundaries of the playing area,” he said.
