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Ayazbullah rahmanir satan e rasheem, Bishamllah Ramhan ur Rahim.
My dear senior minister Abaid Ullah Baig Saheb, faculty members, and my disabled friends asslam alokium. If we were to talk about the rights of special persons, then the first pressing issue which arises is the education of Persons with Disablities. No society progress without education.
In Gilgit Baltistan, today we have on each street a college or a school for abled persons, but not for disabled persons. For instance, when I was studying, there didn’t use to be any government schools for disabled persons within the region except for a private school, Vision Eye International. From there I went to Islamabad for my further studies and Lahore for my Graduation. Though my example is a bit old, it still shows that there are problems for persons with disablities even today.
Even today, though there is a primary school in the Gilgit division, http://www.gilgitbaltistanscouts.gov.pk/TOGeography%20.html, it is still hard for people to access from far-flung areas. This raises a question: why are disabled persons deprived of their rights? I will give you an example. In my hometown, Ghizer, there is a special education complex but mismanagement.
But apart from the education of disabled persons, the government should also ensure that persons with disablities are becoming employable. As mentioned above, I went down South for my further studies: this meant that along the way I made some friends from Islamabad, Lahore, and Karachi who are now all employable, but thousands of people like me in GB arent. We have struggled for our education, and we deserve employment. The government should heed attention to this.
When I came back to GB in 2019, there was a disabled act 2019 that was passed unanimously by the GB Government unanimously, and we founded the Disabled Alliance in Gilgit Baltistan for whom I was the president for a year that worked on issues surrounding PWDs. Now we have eight of the disabled-led organizations in GB that visually impaired persons lead. So my request to the government is to heed attention to the special person’s community of Gilgit Baltistan. If disabled persons are leading organizations such as ours, can’t they work in the government sector?
I Would like to express my gratitude to the KIU sociology department and Mr. Zubair Ahmed, its Head for organizing this awareness session and for the students who were listening to my speech. Tommorow we would expect these students who might become lawyers, government ministers or etc to extend their hands to support the disabled cause. Disabled people in the rest of Pakistan have become 1: Lecturers, 2, Ambassadors and Teachers, so why cant we? We can!!!!!!!
