Moment of silence observed to honour Stephen Hawking

Differently-abled people call for enhancing govt jobs quota from 2%

PESHAWAR: As a gesture of respect, a moment of silence was observed to honour the services of physicist and cosmologist Stephen Hawking despite having been a ‘special person’ for almost four decades.

The tribute was paid during a meet-up on social inclusion of people with disability. The meet up had been organised by International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC) at a local hotel where, besides people who are differently-abled, officials of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) health department and many, involved in the rehabilitation of people who are differently-abled, were present on the occasion.

Experts stated around a billion people are differently-abled since one out of every seven people on earth was a ‘special person’ one way or the other. Like Hawking, however, disability could not stop someone from achieving their objectives.



People who are differently-abled expressed satisfaction over the facilities being provided across K-P; they, however, pointed out that the quota for special persons needs to be enhanced since the current two per cent quota cannot accommodate a large number of people who are differently-abled across the province.

They stated that only the centres, offering rehabilitation services, were ‘disable-friendly’ while almost all the private and government buildings, including hotels, transport system, the majority of the educational institutions, hospitals, lacked such facilities.

“We have the only centre in the region including India where we receive people from Afghanistan as well and we facilitate rehabilitation of persons with disability,” said Muhammad Ilyas, head of the Paraplegic Center.

He, however, stressed upon awareness among the general public since special people needed special facilities adding developed countries have designated space in car-parking, ramps in buildings and even washrooms for special persons.

“There is no early intervention for children born with a disability and we need to have such facilities,” Ilyad told the gathering.



Health Services Director General Dr Ayub Roz stated that the government was facilitating different centres by allocating annual grants. However, most of the money was being spent on curative efforts with little attention for prevention and promotion sectors.

He informed that the government was planning on setting up rehabilitation centres across all the divisional headquarters.

ICRC’s spokesperson Najam Abbasi stated 23 physical rehabilitation centres were being supported and 52,000 persons with disabilities were assisted across the country in 2017 alone.