— Dawn

SIALKOT: A visually-challenged youngster has joined the Information Technology (IT) department at the Sialkot DCO’s office.

Muhammad Farhan Ahmed, 25, was visibly delighted to be part of a team managing the DCO office IT assignments. After a meeting, the DCO offered him job and Thursday was his first day in office.

Having done his MSc in Mass Communication from the Punjab University, he set about hunting a job and the Punjab government had recently given him a clerical job in the highways department.

“I felt slighted on being offered a clerical job and met the DCO and informed him about my qualification, requesting him to depute me at any place. And the DCO was kind enough to offer me a job in his IT department,” he told Dawn.

He said he had never allowed his disability to stand in the way of his ambition (of achieving something in life) and he was delighted to have a respectable job. He said all his colleagues were very cooperative and kind to him. He said he had a special software in his laptop which enabled him to perform any task.

“A disability should not be one’s inability and persons with special needs can be useful citizens in many ways. All they need is proper care, affection and encouragement to get along,” said Farhan, who is one of seven brothers and sisters. Like him, his one brother and one sister are blind by birth.

He was all praise for his Punjab University teachers like Dr Ahsan Akhtar Naz, Dr Abida and Dr Bushra Rehman and his class-fellows, who supported and encouraged him all along.

He said he was fond of journalism and had already worked as a trainee in some national dailies in Lahore. He intends going to the USA for “higher education and developing a software that can help the blind.”

Published in Dawn, June 19th, 2015

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