Disabled persons to top two million in a few years

by Ananda KANNANGARA

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Sri Lanka Medical Association, President Prof. Lalitha Mendis on Thursday said that there will be nearly two million disabled persons in Sri Lanka during the next few years.She said the Government and other organisations currently engaged in social service activities will have to play a vital role to meet the requirements of the community and uplift their social status.

Prof. Mendis was speaking at the Annual General Meeting of the National Council for the Deaf (NCD), held in Colombo. NCD, Director Maud Senaratne presided.

Referring to global statistics, Prof. Mendis said that of the 6.6 billion population, 10 per cent are disabled and measures have been already taken in many countries to meet their demands while improving their living standards.

"Although, Sri Lanka has not updated statistics about the number of disabled persons, it has been revealed that the disabled community in our country has increased from 3 to 13 per cent".She said the authorities must pay special attention towards improving the educational activities of disabled persons and their vocational skills such as woodwork training, carpentry, masonry, lace making, tailoring and patchwork.

Speaking about the country's special education on disabled students, Prof Mendis said, "We do not know how well these special education teachers have been trained and what skills they passes to handle children with development disabilities".Among the students who passed out from the School for the Blind, 80 are employed in various job categories".

"A blind student who was sent for higher studies at S. Thomas' College, Mt. Lavinia became the champion rover in the school and another student who was sent to the Central School at Bandaragama became the best student in the class".

She said a number of blind children became champions at the 2002 and 2004 all-island interschool Western Music and Dance Competition," Referring to a recent World Bank report, Prof. Mendis said that the authorities should focus attention not only on education, employment and discrimination of disabled persons but also on their income, poor housing and sanitation.Prof. Mendis said the authorities should enrol more disabled students to universities and also grant them job opportunities in public and private sector institutions.