JEDDAH — In collaboration with the Ministry of Health, and due to the psychological impact of COVID-19, the Help Center on Tuesday launched its initiative "Attentive Ears". The initiative stems from the core belief of social responsibility toward persons with intellectual disabilities and their families in Saudi Arabia. The initiative aims to support families psychologically to help them adapt and face the challenges and pressures they are experiencing. A team of volunteers consisting of more than 10 specialists from the Help Center and beyond offer their service and support. The initiative also provides an opportunity to people with intellectual disabilities to communicate directly, encourage them to express their feelings, help them cope with the current situation, and ways to deal with the change in their daily routine. The initiative is based on the advice and guidance that has been provided to the families of the Help Center since the onset of the current pandemic, and on the previous experience of service provided to 5,000 families over the past 34 years. The initiative aims to act as a hotline, using social media and smart phone application as a means of direct contact with specialists. The Help Center is a private non-profit organization committed to enhance the quality of life of individuals with intellectual disabilities by giving them the opportunity to learn, live, work, and play, in a safe environment. We believe that it is important to empower individuals with intellectual disabilities to become active, vocal, and productive community members starting at an early stage of their development, support their families within their bigger community, and to promote and advocate the human rights disability act for people with intellectual disabilities.
