Int’l Day of Special Persons observed

LAHORE : The Department of Special Education in collaboration with UNICEF organised an event on the eve of International Day of Special Persons at a local hotel here on Saturday.

Secretary Special Education Department Punjab Saima Saeed, Director General Special Education Sumaira Farooq, others officers and special education teachers and special children attended the event.

The students belonging to the educational institutions of the Special Education Department also presented colourful tableaus and received great applause from the audience. A documentary on special children made by Mahzeb, a special student of a local college, was shown to the audience.

Addressing the ceremony, Saima Saeed said that the basic purpose of observing this day was to highlight and create awareness about the basic rights and issues being faced by children with disabilities. She further said the Special Education Department was providing education and training of special children according to international standards and added all the facilities were being provided free by the Government of Punjab. The role of parents is very important to make special children a useful member of the society, she added.

Wilbroad Ngambi, Chief Field Education from UNICEF Punjab said that transformative solutions for inclusive development were the need of the hour for fueling an accessible and equitable world. He said that disability inclusion was an essential condition to upholding human rights, sustainable development and peace and security. He said that the people with disabilities, especially the children, deserve attention, and their welfare was also central to the promise of the 2030 agenda for sustainable development to leave no one behind. Sumaira Farooq said that the data of 70,000 people with all the four disabilities in the province had been aggregated, which contained 40,000 children with disabilities, who would be enrolled in the government schools.