By Norah Owaraga | Project Team Leader
“My blind brother George got killed by a car while crossing the road.
Crossing the road from the boda boda (motorbike taxi) stage on main street to the market, that is a death trap for blind people. They don’t have anywhere to walk.
The Local Council has kept quiet for too long. Even you, as a council member, nothing is being done.
My little brother is blind and the Council has no plans for people like him. If those roads were safe, maybe, just maybe, your brother wouldn’t have had that accident.
My brother refuses to leave the house now. He is terrified.
Nothing changes for people like me. The seeing have never planned for the blind. Not yesterday, not today, not tomorrow.
Out there, cars will knock me. People will still laugh. Everyone pretends to care, but when the blind suffer and the world keeps walking. George was just buried today. You want me to follow him?
Come with me and enjoy the sun, my brother. Things are going to change. We shall have the new pathways with raised edges so you can follow them by touch. And the signposts they will glow in different colours depending on directions.
I am more than ready to go out. I kept imagining the sound of the new pathways. Can you imagine? Raised edges I can feel with my cane. And the signposts that flow in different colours, I want to hear the difference. Even light has a sound, you know.
I haven’t felt this alive in years. Do you think people will notice I dressed up?
Come on, sister. Take my hand. Let’s go before the sun goes down.
You also promised, we’d go to where you will put the new signpost near the market. The one that plays a sound when you’re about to cross. I want to stand there and listen. I want to hear the world guiding me again.
We are tired! Tired of leaders who take money and leave the blind in darkness!
We see it with our feet. With our hands. With our fear. When you forget to plan for us, you erase us.
Do you know hat it means to stand at the edge of a road and not know whether the next step will be life or death?
Blindness does not warn you before it comes. So, build a world that will be kind to you when your eyes grow tired.”
Extracted from the script of a play “FEET THAT CAN SEE.” A play that was scripted, performed and edited by Media Change Agents in training under our Dr. Paul Hargrave Memorial Centre Human Development Project in November 2025.
“FEET THAT CAN SEE” was inspired by our “Restore eyesight & worth of rural poor in Uganda” project.
Scripting and performing the play served a multi-pronged purpose:
Teach learners how to create original content that is intended for behavioural change for the benefit of persons less advantaged. Each learner participated in originating the script in English and then translating scenes to one of the Ugandan languages (mother-tongue); and performing the play in their own mother-tongue. With guidance from their trainers, learners shot and edited the play.
Consciously awaken learners to the plight and suffering of millions of visually impaired Ugandans and who are marginalized with minimal public services provision, if any. For context, it is reported that there are over 20 million people who are blind across Sub-Saharan Africa, of whom nearly 3 million are Ugandans. And for those millions of Ugandans blind and visually impaired Ugandan roads "present signficant safety challenges."
We hold hope that our learners were moved sufficiently to become advocates for the blind and visually impaired. We hope they will lobby duty bearers to act, plan for and execute interventions for the blind. So that being blind need not be a death sentence. Most importantly, avoidable blindness should not prevail.
In the meantime, in Country in which the visually impaired are unable to access official help, your contribution in support of the work of the very few eye doctors in Uganda who are fighting blindness and are restoring sight goes a long way.
Thank you to all our donors who have made a financial contribution in support of equipping eye doctors to prevent avoidable blindness. We continue to ask for your help. Please help us to spread the word to others in your network, encouraging them to make a financial donation. Together we can contribute to a world that is kind to the blind in Uganda.
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