At least 25 persons living with disabilities in Aweil town received 25 wheelchairs from Smile Again Africa Development Organization (SAADO) on Thursday.
Of these, 12 were women and girls while the rest of the humanitarian assistance were men.
This comes after the national non-governmental organization carried an assessment to find out the needs of people living with disabilities in Northern Bahr e Ghazal.
The assessment, according to the officer in charge of the project, revealed that some of the disabled in the state lacked mobilities in the area.
“When we thought about this, we said we should support them with wheelchairs so that a farmer among them goes to farm while someone doing a small business does that freely without any transport hindrances,” Akech Michael told Akol Yam FM.
He disclosed that the assistance is part of the economic empowerment project to ensure people living with disabilities are supported to carry out their livelihood activities.
Another proposal, the officer said, is being developed to assist those who might have not got an assistance.
For their parts, some beneficiaries told Akol Yam FM that they used to crawl, but with this assistance will change their lives.
“Crawling has been a major thing that has impacted our lives negatively for a very long time. But now things will change positively and it is a big thanks to the government and the NGO that supported us,” an elated Mark Madhieu said.
For his part, James Garang, described the wheelchair donation as an end to “our suffering”.
He explained: “Since yesterday, we have been moving around happily because our suffering has ended. There is no more crawling and now we can greet people with clean hands because we are in the wheelchairs.”
The assistance reached the vulnerable people through the Ministry of Social Welfare in partnership with the Juba-based SAADO.