One of my first interactions with a person with mental and physical disability occurred several years ago during one of my trips to a play area with my kids. While I was playing peek-a-boo with my eight-month-old daughter, a child in a wheelchair who seemed to have physical as well as mental impairments was sitting close by. In my attempt to act "normally" and avoid being intrusive or rude, I avoided looking at him and just focused on my daughter. However, I noticed that the boy was watching us and started laughing each time my daughter giggled. This gave me the courage to play with him as well and he just laughed and kept looking at me with a big smile waiting for more. His mother was thrilled that someone acknowledged her child for who he was and that he was having fun just like the rest of the kids were. This made me realize that avoiding looking at children in our culture is not part of acting "normally" and doing so would be just as rude as staring at them. Sadly, lack of awareness and sometimes even absence of interaction with people with specific needs or disabilities lead many of us to feel awkward around them whether they are children or adults. According to the most recent statistics, there are 900,000 people with disabilities and specific needs in Saudi Arabia. Jeddah alone has 150,000 of them, but sadly only 7,000 are beneficiaries of the 27 rehabilitation and specific needs centers. The shortage of centers and rarity of accommodations in most public places make it difficult for them to integrate and be included in the society they live in, which leaves them isolated and sometimes even discriminated against. As a result, many people who have the means tend to send their children abroad or even leave the country with them in order to give them the proper education and care they need. If this is the case for Saudis, imagine how difficult it is for expatriates in the Kingdom who have children with specific needs living with them. On top of insufficient existing help centers, these centers are mainly for an Arabic-speaking population while many expatriates' native language is not Arabic in the first place, which would force them to leave the country or send their children to a country where they can find the accommodations needed for rehabilitation and education. Laws are usually the best way to insure inclusion and fair treatment for all people. Saudi Arabia has some of the best laws in favor of people with disabilities and specific needs, but, unfortunately, the institutions which are obligated to implement them are not strictly scrutinized to ensure their compliance with the laws even with the most basic accommodations, such as the facilitations needed for wheelchair and mobility access. Government incentives to employ people with impairments or specific needs have contributed slightly in increasing their socialization and reducing the stigma against them. Awareness has also been slowly increasing, which could be attributed to many active parents, who participate in different government and private non-profit organizations. They fight relentlessly for their children to live a good life and sadly are the target of pity and are even sometimes blamed for their children's disabilities. They do not need our pity or disdain; all they want is for their children's basic needs to be met while being accepted, understood, and included. Most people are usually comfortable with what they are familiar with. Familiarity does not only increase with social interaction, as important as it is, but also through knowledge. Increasing awareness could start with parents and teachers talking to children about people with specific needs and disabilities every chance they get, which would be much more effective if they socialize with them as well. What is even more important than the information is the way it is expressed and the attitude conveyed with it because children can see beyond words and most of the time they carry this perception all their lives. Thus, it is essential that the information should be conveyed in a matter-of-fact manner suitable to their age and devoid of pity. Our whole society needs to understand that people with disabilities or specific needs deserve to be accepted and treated as equal human beings who happen to have different needs and characteristics. If you encounter people with disabilities, treat them as you would truly treat anyone else. If you feel like they need help and you are in doubt of what to do, it is much better to follow their lead and ask them in a respectful manner if they need help in the first place than to withdraw out of fear of being rude. They need our compassion not pity because while the former leads to positive change and support, the latter leads to rudeness or patronization. The writer can be reached at [email protected]
