RECENTLY, it has come to my knowledge how severely undermined the facilities in our country for children with special needs are. People are extremely unaware about the efforts being made for people with special needs.

This is unfortunate, because many organisations and individuals are making considerable effort into providing facilities to such people, and these efforts should be acknowledged.

Primarily, there are some excellent educational facilities dedicated to bettering intellectually or physically challenged children, and to bring out the best in them.

Such facilities include Ida Rieu, a school for the hearing-and vision-impaired, Dar-ul-Sukoon, a live-in educational facility for the cognitively impaired and abandoned, and many other such schools.

Another recent effort that I would like to shed light upon is a joint collaboration by a few local NGOs, a programme to enable children with special needs to express themselves, using art as an outlet.

Their artwork, accumulated over a period of six months, was then auctioned off, and the money collected from the auction will be used to buy these children health insurance.

The magnitude of this programme was such that the US consulate too thought it to be a worthwhile cause, and hence contributed $80,000 to it.

My point here is that there are organisations and individuals who are putting considerable efforts into helping people with special needs.

Such efforts are not always acknowledged which is very unfortunate.

People should know what kind of work is being done, because awareness will always lead to improvement.

NUDRAT KAMAL Karachi