NCCR Concludes Disability Lectures in Abdel Fattah Hamoud School

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.