By Yiep Joseph<\/p>\n
As Juba City rapidly urbanizes, teachers are raising concerns about the shrinking availability of playgrounds for children in residential areas.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n The issue was highlighted on Tuesday during a handover ceremony of sports materials donated by partners to 26 public primary schools in Juba.<\/p>\n Elizabeth Jino Jada, headteacher of Buluk B Primary School, spoke on behalf of her fellow headteachers, urging relevant authorities to address the need for safe play spaces for children in residential neighborhoods.<\/p>\n The lack of such spaces, she argued, deprives children of essential recreational opportunities and limits their ability to engage in healthy activities.<\/p>\n \u201cThose years where there was space, children would play in the area to know themselves and their talent, but no, there are no playgrounds in residential areas, only a few well-known places that are far,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cNow children do not play in the residential areas; they only play when they come to school, which was not the case before. We built our talent in our areas when we were young,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n Jino emphasized that sports among children in the area ease the ability for children to know one another physically and what they are best at.<\/p>\n \u201cSports is very important; it strengthens relationships between schools, states, and children in the area to stay in peace and know each other,\u201d she said.\u201cWithout sport, children and people will not know themselves in the area,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n She acknowledged that many residential areas in Juba lack playgrounds, while those at school are play-in sizes. On his part, Phawel Arama, who spoke on behalf of schools in the 3 blocks of Munuki, Kator, and Juba, expressed government\u2019s commitment to ensuring successful enrollment of learners.<\/p>\n He added that the government is committed to encouraging sports for peace among the learners across Juba County in particular and South Sudan at large.<\/p>\n Aram urged the learners to use sports to display their talent in order to get other opportunities.<\/p>\n He called on the parents to encourage their children to embark on sports, adding that it prevents them from being engaged in criminal activities.<\/p>\n Sports foster mental and physical well-being, install values related to healthy competition, and Teach life skills such as teamwork, leadership, accountability, patience, and self-confidence, prepare students to face life challenges.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Yiep Joseph As Juba City rapidly urbanizes, teachers are raising concerns about the shrinking availability of playgrounds for children in residential areas. The issue was highlighted on Tuesday during a handover ceremony of sports materials donated by partners to 26 public primary schools in Juba. Elizabeth Jino Jada, headteacher[Read More…]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":33289,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[80,79],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/Some-of-the-learners-during-the-handover-of-balls-by-JICA.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33288","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33288"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33288\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33290,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33288\/revisions\/33290"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n\u201cIn schools, there are playgrounds for children, but they are small, and there is no support even when the child has an interest in sports,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n