Physically challenged people to get skills training

Project to enable disabled to earn and support families.

LAHORE: The Lahore Businessmen Association for Rehabilitation of the Disabled (Labard) has decided to impart training to the beneficiaries of Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund (PPAF) projects and their families who have certain disabilities and are living on the outskirts of Lahore.

The decision to this effect was taken at a roundtable meeting between PPAF Chief Operating Officer Kamran Akbar and Labard President Mohammad Pervaiz Malik here.

PPAF would request its partner organisations in and around Lahore to send their borrowers having disabilities to the Labard Vocational Training Centre at Shadman, Lahore, so that they could become bread winners and support their families.

PPAF would bear transportation cost for those participating in training programmes and would also facilitate future roundtables between its partners and Labard so that maximum facilities could be extended to the physically challenged people.

Besides counselling, employment, financial and placement services, Labard offers training facilities to the disabled in various trades according to their needs.

Malik said that disabled people are facing more challenges so other people should play their role to enable the physically challenged to become effective members of the society.

Akbar said that the PPAF has also launched a nationwide enterprise development training programme to impart skills so that the handicapped could have a regular and an independent source of earning.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 4^th, 2011.