Protection of Disabled Further Improved in DPRK

Pyongyang, December 20 (KCNA) -- The Central Committee of the Korean Federation for the Protection of the Disabled has made achievements in rehabilitating the disabled and providing them with stable living conditions and environments this year. The federation organized a training course and symposium for members of the non-permanent state committee for the protection of the disabled to develop their sense of responsibility and role and share achievements and experience. The federation offered necessary facilities to work-teams of the disabled in Sinuiju, Hamhung and Wonsan areas. It equipped the Korean Rehabilitation Centre for Children with Disability and the centre for early education in sign language with hearing-test rooms for infants, apparatuses for the recovery of cerebral palsy and equipment for the education of sign language, and sent hearing aids to people with hypacusia. It has also published textbooks for the blind, operated a library for the disabled at the Sci-Tech Complex on a normal basis and entered people with disabilities in tele-education colleges. The federation has encouraged a number of disabled persons to take active part in art and sports activities. Amid the active exchange and cooperation between international bodies, national associations and overseas Koreans' organizations related with the protection of the disabled, more than 30 delegations visited the facilities for the protection of the disabled. In particular, a close cooperation between the federation and the European Union Programme Support to the DPRK has been made in different fields like special education and disaster prevention and the UN special rapporteur on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and her party showed a disposition to render technological cooperation in executing the accord on the rights of the disabled. -0-