JEDDAH: The two-day “Chromosome” entertainment and training program, hosting 30 children with intellectual disabilities to help them integrate into society, has concluded in Jeddah.
The event, for children aged between four and 18 years old, offered courses on pottery and canvas painting.
According to Kawakib Al-Najjar, the event coordinator, the activities, held at the Arty Café and organized by the “Volunteers for Them” team, were planned to empower the participants to become independent and help them in the future.
“The children’s interaction was wonderful, starting from touching the material to designing the pottery shapes that were chosen for them, knowing that it is a skill that strengthens the muscles of their fingers and hands,” Al-Najjar told Arab News.
She added that caring for people and children with intellectual disabilities can benefit them and wider society.
Discussions between the organizers and relatives of the children was also held as part of the program, to encourage the families to teach their children crafts that can enhance their abilities and integrate better into society.
Al-Najjar stressed the importance of training and educating people with intellectual disabilities.
“All available psychological, social and behavioral (methods) should be considered to help these people overcome their difficulties and challenges,” she said, confirming that such courses can contribute to reducing hyperactive behavior and improving some accompanying behaviors, such as distraction and impulsiveness.
“Previous experiences have revealed that teaching people with intellectual disabilities a certain craft can provide an external stimulus that compensates children for the weakness of their internal stimuli, and this in turn leads to raising the rates of their adaptation to society and improving their ability to communicate,” she explained.
She added that such techniques can increase these children’s chances of getting jobs and, as a result, securing them a better, more self-sufficient and satisfactory life.
Al-Najjar explained that the name of the event symbolizes the fact that genes can cause disability.
Sharing statistics about people with different disabilities in the Makkah region, the coordinator said that over 7,860 people of both genders are suffering from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
“Over 6,190 people in the region have Down’s syndrome, while more than 173,400 are visually impaired, and over 66,550 have hearing impairments. Some 218,097 people are suffering from motor disability, while 7,735 have been found to be autistic,” she said.