Deputy Minister of Labor and Social Development of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Dr. Tamador bint Yousef Al-Rammah has confirmed that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia follows a national strategy for people with disabilities, including 23 initiatives designed to serve them and take care of them, which forges a national program to diagnose and classify the phenomenon of disability in addition to a national record including unified data and statistics. In a speech she delivered at the UN headquarters in New York before the eleventh conference for the Parties of the Convention for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, Al-Rammah said the Kingdom has put an initiative to enhance early intervention and expansion in the merger program of public education schools, provision of vocational training and applying the comprehensive access program. This year, the Saudi authorities established a special commission to undertake the affairs the people with special needs as an umbrella and reference body to put the regulations, legislations and special policies pertaining them and its implements the plans and upgrades awareness of their cause and provides consultancy, Al-Rammah said. She gave an account on the history of the Kingdom's care of this important social segment, citing the 2000 rule, the 2008 accession to the Convention for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. She confirmed that the three-pillar Kingdom Vision 2030 has stated that the people with special needs would be enabled to obtain appropriate job opportunities, including special education and facilitation of the way to success. Dr. Tamador said the ministry supervises as many as 38 homes sponsoring persons from this social segment from different parts of the Kingdom, 44 specialized associations, and 347 day care centers. Concluding her speech, the Deputy Minister said the Saudi national transformation program 2020 has allocated a special goal to enable the people with special needs to merge in the labor market.
