The National
Center for Community Rehabilitation concluded lectures about
disability targeted 52 students of the secondary level at
Abdel Fattah Hamoud School in Gaza. These activities come
under the plan proposed by the Awareness and Guidance
Program in the Center to the Ministry of Education and which
targets school students in the Prep. and secondary levels by
providing awareness and guidance about disability.
The lectures,
held for 2 days in the amount of 2 hours a day, handled
defining disability, its causes and types, and ways of
preventing disability. Furthermore, Mr. Hany Abu Zaid,
rehabilitation consultant of the NCCR, pointed out that the
percentage of disability in Gaza Strip reached 4.5 % of the
total population according to the field survey implemented
by the Center from house to house. Mr. Abu Zaid, as students
demanded, tackled the impact of the first and second
Intifada and the violations the Israeli army practices on
the rates of disability in Gaza Strip, where the percentage
of the disabled by occupation reached 5.17% of the total
number of the disabled according to the same survey.
Additionally,
Mr. Abu Zaid discussed defining the collective education as
being giving the chance for integrating the disabled with
the normal taking in consideration the individual
dissimilarities for both sides. He also pointed out that the
collective education reduces the negative psychological
effects on the disabled and their families, and makes the
disabled believe in the idea of integration and education
with normal students at school. In addition to this, he
highlighted that 135 schools in Gaza City were adapted for
the implementation of the collective education system and to
suit the disabled, where classes were adapted, having
special bathroom for the disabled, and using inclinations
and pavements for the schools' playground.
It is worthy to
mention that the lectures targeted 202 students so far in
the secondary schools, in the purpose of forming a small and
aware society to spread the experience to the rest of the
students as well as to their families.