NGOs to hold International Day for People with Special Needs

[TamilNet, Thursday, 02 December 2004, 04:13 GMT]
"More than 1500 residents of Vavuniya district are People with Special Needs. The number has increased due to new borns with defects, loss of function of limbs due to illness and due to injuries from two decades of war," said V Subramaniyam head of the Consortium of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) in Vavuniya during a press meet Wednesday held to announce holding of International Day for the People with Special Needs at the Vavuniya Municipal Hall on Thursday, civil sources said.

Majority of those with special needs are children, according to officials of the NGOs. Among the forty two NGOs operating in Vavniya district only a few NGOs such as Social, Economic and Environmental Developers (SEED), Organization for the Rehabilitation of Handicapped (ORHAN), FORUT, FRC and RIPT carryout projects to assist the people with special needs.

ORHAN is working in more than forty villages in Vavuniya North and South Regional Secretariat divisions. ORHAN also announced that they are to expand the operation to 34 additional villages in the Chettikulam secretariat division.

More than 90 children with special needs are cared for in Rejuvenation Campus run by SEED, and more than 25 mentally handicapped persons are cared for by ORHAN in the "Garden of New Life" located in Vavuniya, Mr Subramaniyam told the reporters.

United Nations has declared 3rd December as the International Day for People with Special Needs, and the period between 1983 to 1992 was celebrated as the Decade for People with Special Needs, the NGO officers said.




Mr V Subramaniyam (with glasses) and Mr N Singam, chairman of SEED wotj reporters and officers of other NGOs.