Work, Ambition, and Devotion With People With Disabilities Inside Syria
March 14, 2023 - Among the many distinguished projects for this year, Baytna supported the Qudrat project for working with people with disabilities, led by the Sanabel Al-Amal Association in the western countryside of Aleppo.
The project aims to support and empower people with disabilities and enable them to rely on themselves and lead their lives more naturally and easily. The project also aimed to educate the community and caregivers about the importance of this group and the need to invest their energies to build a society that guarantees the rights of all its components and increases sensitivity to the issues of marginalized groups.
After the team made field visits to several centers that care for people with disabilities to evaluate the services that can be provided, they secured hearing aids for children with hearing problems. In addition, 35 cases of various disabilities were served with mobility, hearing, visual equipment, and other services, including toilet seats, special medical glasses, headphones, wheelchairs, and maintenance of electric chairs.
In the second part of the project, the trainer Imad Al-Bashtini, who has a visual disability, and the trainer Shaimaa Hilal, who has a motor disability, enabled the staff working on serving people with disabilities to become more experienced in working with multiple types of disabilities for the benefit of the people with disabilities, especially children. Seventy-five cadres were trained on the importance of special education, the basics of treatment, and methods of communication. Afterward, the cadres were also trained on case management, learning Braille, and developing systematic plans to provide people with disabilities with the needed services.
At the end of this beautiful project, the Sanabel Al-Amal Organization, with its trainers and trainees, celebrated the International Day of People with Disabilities, through which the category of people with disabilities was highlighted, and society's stereotype about them was broken.
The ceremony was presented by Ms. Shaima Helal, who has a motor disability, where the audience interacted with her presence and challenged her disability and her ability to be in leadership positions within civil society organizations and motivated her peers to follow her example in overcoming her disability. The ceremony included 225 people, including 150 people with disabilities and several civil society organizations interested in the issues of people with disabilities and families with children with disabilities, within the cultural center in the city of Atarib.
Mr. Rami Al-Ahmad, Executive Director of Sanabel Al-Amal Organization, says: "The capabilities project had a great impact in supporting and empowering people with disabilities who are considered the most vulnerable marginalized groups, especially women, as it contributed to spreading societal awareness of the importance of people's issues." Disability and the importance of removing the stigma of many caregivers towards them. It also contributed to raising the level of community awareness of the importance of this category and the necessity of its participation in building society and pushing people with women with disabilities to get rid of isolation and withdraw into themselves, and move from being From individual consumers to productive persons who leave an impact on society.