Vice Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques Prince Salman, minister of defense, has instructed Chairman of the Saudi Commission for Tourism & Antiquities (SCTA) Prince Sultan bin Salman to follow up the issue of Ammar Bouqs, an outstanding graduate with special needs, whose request for a job at the King Abdulaziz University (KAU) in Jeddah was turned down recently.
“Bouqs applied for the post of tutor at KAU and contacted the president of the university in person, who told him that the matter was being examined,” Prince Sultan, who is also chairman of the Saudi Disabled Children’s Association, said in a statement reported by Al-Eqtisadiah yesterday. “Bouqs belongs to a section of people who are very dear to us, and I have been demanding they should not be called ‘people with special needs’ but ‘people with special gifts’,” said the prince.
The story of Bouqs was uploaded last month on YouTube and watched by half a million viewers, according to some media reports.
The prince said the moment he heard about Bouqs’ issue he spoke with the graduate who was familiar to him.
The prince said he was proud that Bouqs got an invitation to the United Arab Emirates because it was a happy instance of a Saudi man being honored in another country for his achievements.
He said it was the special gifts of disabled men that make them achieve what able-bodied people cannot achieve, and such gifts enabled Bouqs to become a distinguished university graduate.
Prince Sultan said the authorities, in collaboration with the Ministry of Education, would soon announce a program to integrate disabled graduates to the Education Ministry.
The prince said he met Bouqs and told him that everybody was concerned about his issue. “We are proud of him and the tens of thousands of people with special needs who work silently for the development of the nation,” he said.
The government has issued a National System for Disability and will soon issue another system that would make it mandatory for the SCTA, the Ministry of Transport, and General Authority of Civil Aviation and the Ministry of Municipal & Rural Affairs to have special facilities for people with special needs.The private sector would also fall under the scheme to help the disabled, the prince said.
“Remarkable achievements have been made in creating a disability-friendly environment in the Kingdom, but it took a lot of time and effort to achieve it. The society is changing and becoming more and more environmentally friendly as it increasingly understands the issues of the disabled,” the prince said.
Prince Sultan also expressed his surprise at reports published in local newspapers including a column by Najeeb Al-Zamil on the Bouqs issue. He urged writers to ascertain all facts before writing about reports appearing in newspapers and social networks sites such as Twitter and YouTube.
President of KAU Osama Taib told Al-Eqtisadiah that the Bouqs’ application for employment had not been rejected, as it is under study.
He added that Bouqs was not a first rank holder in the university or in his faculty as reported in the local media. He said Bouqs was adopted by the university since joining the mass media department as a student. There are many men and women with special needs working in various faculties. A lecturer is appointed irrespective of his/her physical condition, rather on the basis of some general specifications and qualities, the president said.
“The story started the day I graduated with a first position in the university, when I applied for a tutoring position. When I went to the president’s office, Saleh Ghondurah told me that the president could not see me because he had a busy schedule. I got the same reply when I tried to meet the president many times over the next three weeks,” Bouqs told Al-Eqtisadiah.
He added that when he finally insisted that he must see the president, the office director told him that his application would not be accepted because he was handicapped.
“I was determined and wanted to hear the president’s view on the matter. When I entered the director’s office he pushed me so hard that I almost fell. Finally I was able to enter the office and explained everything to the president. He promised to take stern action,” Bouqs said.
Bouqs also said he was invited by the UAE Crown Prince Sheikh Hamadan bin Muhammad Al-Maktoum and was offered a tutor’s job at Dubai’s American University.
Prince Sultan takes up case of aspiring tutor with special needs
