Sudanese love their football and the pitch is where children not only compete but also make friends and learn to communicate.

'If you don't join the football community, you feel isolated.'

The importance of giving young people with disabilities the opportunity to play sport was highlighted this week at an international conference in the Qatari capital, Doha.

Mr Abdin, who is now studying at a Japanese university and regularly plays blind football, was just one of many inspirational stories presented at the conference.

Hosted by the Shafallah Centre for Children with Special Needs, the conference brought together 250 academics and practitioners from around the world to discuss the role sport can play in the lives of people with a disability and to highlight innovative education programmes.

Providing the celebrity factor were some current and former first ladies, including Cherie Blair, the head of the International Paralympic Committee Sir Philip Craven and a host of Paralympians.

The importance of recognising the rights of people with disabilities is increasingly entering the international consciousness.

On December 13, 2006, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities was adopted. To date 127 countries, including China, have signed the convention, which will take effect next month.

About 10 per cent of the world's population, or 650 million people, have a disability, according to Unesco's assistant programme specialist for inclusion and quality enhancement, Jill Van den Brule.

Children with disabilities represent about one-third of the 72 million children around the world who do not attend school. Ms Brule said most lived in developing countries, and sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia were of particular concern.

'There's still a lot of stigma,' she said.

Without the facilities to help them attend school, the future for those living in developing countries remains precarious.

'Their prospects without education are pretty hopeless,' Ms Van den Brule said.

Despite the sobering statistics, Ms Van den Brule said she had seen many positive examples of children with disabilities participating in their communities.

In Kenya she saw children with disabilities being carried to school by their classmates.

She said schools had a vital role to play and it was up to head teachers to lead the way.

'Schools are the likely place where change occurs. If there's not that link at the school level, you can have excellent policies but they won't become realities.'

Speaking under her dual hats as Britain's former first lady and a leading human rights barrister, Mrs Blair said sport could challenge prejudices and help change attitudes.

She said playing sport was a fundamental human right, pointing out that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognised sport and leisure as essential for human beings to 'freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development'.

Mrs Blair said sport embodied the principles of equality, fairness and participation, and united people of different backgrounds in a common purpose and passion.

'Sport has a huge part to play in helping to hasten disabled people's journey towards equality,' she said.

The British charity Scope, which focuses on people with cerebral palsy, has begun introducing some of its students to touch rugby.

All the students were wheelchair-bound and had never been in a team before, Scope's executive director of services Sharon Collins said. They get the chance to meet professional athletes and learn about teamwork. Ms Collins said schools could play a powerful role in introducing young people to sport.

'Your brothers and sisters are sometimes a bit nervous about play in case they hurt you. When you get to school, children don't think like that,' she said.

Ms Collins said sport and education were inextricably linked and both were vital in developing a child's personality.

'Education and sport can engender ambition and teach skills and self-confidence, and all children have the right to that.'

While more students with disabilities are now pursuing higher education, including sport as part of their university experience remains a work in progress in many countries.

American universities have a long tradition of awarding sports scholarships to talented student athletes, but in the past the opportunity to combine high-level sport with getting a degree was not open to those with disabilities.

The University of New Hampshire, north of Boston, is trying to rectify that shortcoming with its Athlete Development Centre, part of the institution's Northeast Passage programme.

The centre, which opened in 2002, provides training and coaching to students with disabilities who are competing at the national, or near-national, level. The centre specialises in winter sports such as skiing and sled hockey.

Four students with disabilities, including Paralympic skier Tyler Walker, are training at the centre on scholarships.

The centre's assistant director, Tom Carr, said that in the past disabled athletes had to choose between sport and university.

'You do not have to choose between one and the other, and that's what able-bodied athletes had for years,' he said.

Mr Carr said students still needed to meet the university's academic requirements to be accepted. He stressed that athletes needed to maintain their academic performance because there was only a 'very minute chance' they would make their living from sport.

To prepare them for life after competition, athletes are given opportunities to improve their public speaking, time management and leadership skills.

The centre also runs recreational activities for all students with disabilities so that they can enjoy the social interaction that comes with playing sport. Students can bring their able-bodied friends and play sports such as wheelchair basketball together.

Mr Carr said sport could be a great equaliser.

'When my athletes go to the weights room to work out and other students see them do things that they could never do, the respect comes right at that moment and then they're seen as just another athlete,' he said.

Mr Abdin provides ample evidence of how, given the right opportunities, students with disabilities can thrive and become involved in all aspects of society.

When he was 19 he received a scholarship to study in Japan. It was there that he discovered Braille. He had only studied English before moving to Japan but has learnt Braille in Japanese.

Mr Abdin, who is now 29 and studying for a master's degree at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, said Braille gave him a great sense of freedom.

'I was really excited that I could wake up at midnight and take my textbooks out and read,' he said. 'I didn't need to rely on others.'

In Japan he also discovered 'blind football', where players use a ball with a bell and an instructor guides them from behind the goals.

'Some people say it's a dangerous sport. For me danger means exciting,' he said. 'It's a great sense of having shared memories with friends.'

Wanting to give other Sudanese children some of the opportunities he has enjoyed, Mr Abdin and his friend Kentaro Fukuchi, a blind Japanese student, have established the non-profit Committee for Assisting and Promoting Education of the Disabled in Sudan.

The organisation, launched last year, aims to give students with disabilities access to education, sports and information technology.

'The ultimate goal is the full participation and equality of life for people with disabilities in Sudan,' Mr Fukuchi, 23, said. 'We will work with the existing sports institutes in Sudan to include disabled sports in their activities.'

Mr Fukuchi, who lost his sight at age two, said disabled Japanese children were usually sent to special schools but his parents fought for him to attend a mainstream school. His teachers learned Braille and studied blind sports so they could include him in mainstream physical education classes.

By using a ball with a bell inside, Mr Fukuchi was able to play table tennis with his friends and also learned to dance.

'There's always a way that we can do the same activities together,' he said. 'In most cases, this involves just simple modifications.'

Mr Fukuchi, who graduated from university last month and is doing an internship with Unesco before starting work with the Japanese Red Cross in June, said being able to participate in physical education classes, sports days and mainstream school boosted his self-confidence.

'I felt I could do everything like my sighted peers.'

Liz Gooch travelled to Doha courtesy of the Shafallah Centre