A city not built for the blind
But Mora Garcia warns that accessibility remains a challenge for women like Pau.
Sports programmes for athletes with visual impairment remain limited, and cultural expectations for women can be just as restrictive.
Families, he said, frequently discourage daughters from taking part in contact sports, for fear they might get hurt.
Women are also disproportionately expected to perform housework and domestic care. The Mexican government estimates women devote an average of 39.7 hours per week to such chores, more than double the time spent by men.
Those attitudes, according to Mora Garcia, help explain why women’s blind football has developed more slowly than the men’s game.
“Sometimes the biggest barriers aren’t physical,” he said. “They’re created by society and even by families. What these women need is the opportunity to show what they’re capable of.”
One of the greatest difficulties for Hernandez is simply reaching the training sessions.
She relies on her white cane to navigate Mexico City, where broken pavements, crowded buses and other people often make even routine journeys unpredictable.
Strangers sometimes grab her arm without asking, convinced they are helping her, but it can feel “invasive”, she said.
Hernandez insists the greatest obstacles she faces do not come from blindness itself, but from presumptions about what blind women can and cannot do.
She points out that she has built an independent life, working as a massage therapist while raising her six-year-old son, Noel.
“There are many things we can do as people with visual impairments,” she said. “I cook, I look after my husband, and I’ve taken care of my son since the day he was born.”
Hernandez acknowledged that travelling across Mexico City to reach football practice can be difficult. But she said she refuses to let fear dictate her life.
“Of course, there are dangers,” she explained. “But we can’t put ourselves in a little bubble and stay at home. If we don’t push ourselves to go out and discover what we’re capable of, we’ll never do anything with our lives.”
