Tears flow freely for the handicapped, orphans
LAWAS: Many were moved to tears on Monday during Perkim’s Murni Project at Lawas Indoor Stadium.Second Minister of Planning and Resource Management Datuk Amar Awang Tengah Ali Hassan (who officiated at the event) and his wife Dato Dayang Morliah Datuk Awang Daud (who is Perkim Lawas branch chairperson) tried to hold back their tears and happily owned up later that they failed.
The event raised greater public awareness of care for handicapped children in the district and assistance for their families.
“It a very moving ceremony and many of us were in tears,” said Awang Tengah and Dayang Morliah after the ceremony that was also attended by Lawas District Officer Mohd Supaih Hamdan, community leaders and the families of the handicapped children.
The ceremony, according to Morliah, was aimed at putting the spotlight on the special-needs group and raising greater awareness of their rights to better quality of life.
“It is not easy but we proposed a community rehabilitation centre (PDK) for Lawas, and a database of this group for planning their rehabilitation and education,” she said, adding that handicapped children deserve help.
She told parents of such children not to be ashamed and not to close the door of opportunity for the children to achieve self-reliance through rehabilitation.
Suspecting that there are still many out there who are not registered yet with the Welfare Department, she said Perkim Lawas (through ‘Semai Bakti’ programme) is targeting to set up a database of handicapped children and different needs. This requires the help of the community, village leaders and society in general.
“We need to help as these special-needs people have the right to live just like ordinary children, and alleviate the heavy burden of their parents,” she said.
Morliah, who was newly appointed first chairman of PDK Lawas looked forward to expanding the centres out of Lawas to sub-districts in the long term.
Tengah, in his speech while officiating at the function, said there were many government programmes for assisting handicapped people.
The problem is many of the handicapped people are not registered due to the limitations of the Welfare Department.
“My former university lecturer was blind but eventually became a professor, a highly sought-after economist who advises the government,” he said.
The handicapped children and orphans were later given gifts, token financial assistance with contributions from Citra Alti Sdn Bhd and personally from Tengah.
Borneo Post by Philip Kiew
June 16, 2010, Wednesday
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