Alkhidmat Foundation provided wheelchairs to 30,000 deserving persons: Dr. Muhammad Mushtaq Mangat

LAHORE, Dec 02 (SABAH): A number of ceremonies were held across the country in connection with the International Day of Disabled Persons under the auspices of Alkhidmat Foundation Pakistan.

The purpose of holding these ceremonies was to inculcate awareness about the issues of the disabled persons in the society and the solution to their problems. In the ceremonies, wheelchairs, white sticks and other gifts were given away.

In a ceremony held at Lahore, 50 disabled persons were provided wheelchairs, other 50 blind people were given white sticks and more than 150 gifts were given away. The organizations active in connection with special persons, setup stalls as well.

While addressing on this occasion held in connection with the said subject, Vice President Alkhidmat Foundation Pakistan Dr. Muhammad Mushtaq Mangat said that as per an international organization over 1 billion persons were disables ones across the world which forms 15 percent of its total population whereas over 75 millions of them were not provided with the facility of wheelchairs.

According to the United Nations Development Programme 27 million persons were disable persons while majority of them belong to backward areas, deprived of basic health and wheelchair facilities, he noted.

Dr. Mushtaq Mangat said that Alkhidmat Foundation distributes thousands of wheelchairs among the disabled persons annually and added under this programme it distributed 4,000 wheelchairs across the country whereas since 2012, it has distributed 30,000 wheelchairs hitherto. He said Alkhidmat Foundation prepared a complete mechanism for identification of disabled persons for the provision of wheelchairs to the real disabled persons. He said for disabled persons, indoor festivals were also conducted to remove their sense of inferiority complex wherein thousands of such people participate which was also boosting games.

He said that the United States’ well-known welfare organization working on production of wheelchairs cooperates with Alkhidmat Foundation as well. He explained this organization distributes free of cost wheelchairs among the disabled persons of the developing countries and up till now it has distributed wheelchairs among 1.3 disabled persons in 94 developing countries.

President Alkhidmat Foundation Central Punjab Ikramul Haq Subhani said that Alkhidmat has planned to provide wheelchairs to all disabled persons of district Okara and added that any disabled person can file an application in this regard. He said that they will be given wheelchairs on the preference basis.