Rwanda national goalball team departs for Nairobi, Kenya today ahead of this year’s African Championships for Men which is scheduled for December 2-7.

The team has been in intensive training for the last three weeks. Players were selected from three different clubs including Gahini, Nyarugenge-Gatagara and Rwamagana.

Rwanda will be competing with host Kenya, Ghana, Zimbabwe, DRC, Morocco, Egypt and Algeria. 

Speaking to Sunday Sports on Friday, the National Blind Sports Federation president William Safari said, "We call upon all national media institutions to continue creating awareness about the sport since it is still unknown.”

"We are going without enough founds and requirements but we will try our best for the sake of the country,” he noted.

The African championships will qualify two teams for the World Goalball Championships; which will take place in Finland in June, 2014.

Rwanda’s team has been sponsored by the International Blind Sports Association, the National Paralympics Committee (NPC), Rwanda Union of the Blind and the Danish Association of the Blind.

Goalball is a game for people with visual impairment. The game is played by two teams of three players each. Players are all blindfolded. The objective of the game is to score as many points as possible by rolling the ball over the opponent’s goal line using a bowling action.

Goalball was first played in Rwanda in 2005 and in 2008 the sport was played at the national level.

Squad: Calixte Ikuzwe, Ernest Munyaneza, Theogene Sibomana, Vincent Mugisha, William Safali, and Zachariah Dushimirimana.

Head coach: Bertha Schoonbee (South Africa), assisted by Joseph Munyurangabo.