RIYADH, 7 November — Dr. Saleh Al-Homaid, president of the Shoura Council, has submitted for royal approval a $400,000 income generation project of the Islamic Center for Physically Handicapped (ICPH) in Sri Lanka.
The income from the project’s three-story building comprising a shopping complex, an auditorium and exhibition hall would be used for imparting elementary education and technical training to some 250 physically challenged children, N. Jiffry Haniffa, director of ICPH, told reporters here.
He also disclosed that their center became an honorary member of the Riyadh-based Islamic World Council for Disability and Rehabilitation that works under the support of Prince Sultan, second deputy premier and minister of defense and aviation.
The center, which works for the rehabilitation of the handicapped, owns six projects on a site near Colombo — two hostels (for boys and girls), one school, mosque, vocational training center, and an administrative building.
He said the Kingdom has played a major role in funding their projects. Besides an annual donation of $10,000 during the month of Ramadan, philanthropic organizations, Muslim World League and the Iqra Foundation as well as individuals also pitch in with contributions to their cause.
"An anonymous Saudi philanthropist donated four million Sri Lanka rupees (SR160,000) for the construction of a three-story school building," Haniffa said, adding that zakah has played an important role in providing education and technical training to the handicapped children.
Describing the problem of the handicapped children as enormous, he said an estimated 10 percent of Sri Lanka’s 20 million population are physically challenged. Haniffa himself has lost his toe in an industrial accident in 1971.
Between 1984, when he launched it with just about five students, and now with 250 students on board, the project has come a long way. Yet, the challenge that he is addressing is no more than the tip of an iceberg, Haiffa said.
