JEDDAH, 22 July — Makkah Governor Prince Abdul Majeed pledged more efforts to create job opportunities for people with special needs and orphans by providing them training at social service centers under the technical colleges in Jeddah, Makkah and Taif.
The governor made this comment while receiving a group of orphans and youngsters with special needs at his house. They represented the first batch of 400 trainees attending a specialized training program.
"Government departments and private institutions will take the responsibility of providing a stable life for orphans as well as the physically challenged," the prince said. "More efforts should be made to ensure a better life for these people with special needs," he stated.
The new training program for the handicapped and orphans was arranged by technical colleges in association with charitable societies. It comes under the umbrella of the National Training & Employment Project.
Muhammad Sultan Al-Nafie, 20, a disabled trainee, told the gathering, using sign language, that people like him were not finding job opportunities. He also drew the attention of the gathering to the increasing prices of hearing aids. "We also dream of wives, jobs and cars," Nafie said.
Dr. Abdul Aziz Al-Hazza, secretary-general of the national program, said the new training program was the brainchild of Prince Abdul Majeed to open job opportunities for orphans and people with special needs. "According to a study conducted six years ago, there are more than 50,000 people suffering from hearing impairment in the Kingdom," said Faisal Abdullah Al-Harbi, an expert in teaching sign language.
The new training program in some specializations lasts five weeks. There is coordination between the national project and labor offices on employing the disabled and orphans, Hazza said. Muhaimeed Abdullah, director of the Social Service Center at the Technical College in Makkah, said his organization was providing training to hundreds of students with special needs.
Meanwhile, Abdullah Al-Howaimel, director of education in the Makkah region, told Arab News that Saudi schools would continue to merge education of the students with special needs with others to get them out of their isolation and encourage them to live happily in society. He said the Saudi experiment in this respect was successful.
