KARACHI, May 23: Two cinema houses will organize free film shows at least once a month for handicapped children, said noted artist and social worker, Jimmy Engineer.

Speaking at a press conference on Thursday, he said that Nishat and the Star cinema houses immediately extended cooperation when he announced his plan to organize such shows for handicapped children. The films would be provided free of cost by Mandviwalla Entertainment.

He said that the combined capacity of both the cinema houses was around 1,600 and the number of handicapped children in the city was between 8,000 and 10,000. So in a few months, all the special children would be accommodated, he added.

He said that over a year back, he had initiated food and entertainment programmes for handicapped children, under which he took 100 special children to an elite city restaurant so that they could also have fun.

He said that many hotels and restaurants had joined in the food and entertainment programme, and were organizing such programmes regularly with the result that hundreds of special children were being entertained monthly.

He said that he was now organizing film shows for all such children who were not able to go to cinema houses and attend regular shows.

Food and snacks would also be provided to children during the interval. He said that some visually-impaired children would also be taken to the first show, as this would be an unusual experience for them.

He said that children from Edhi Home, Ida Rieu and other institutions would be taken twice to these cinema houses.

He also said that after a few film shows were organized, he would also invite street and destitute children, and maybe students of government schools.

He said that keeping in view the targeted audience, only such films would be selected that would interest these children.

On the occasion, Nawab Huzurul Hassan said that besides Karachi, this concept would also taken to other cities. In this regard, he had spoken to the managements of Gulistan Cinema, Lahore; Rahat Cinema, Quetta and Firdaus Cinema, Hyderabad and they had all agreed.

Shirin Mandviwalla of Nishat Cinema, Zulfiqar Ramzi of Star Cinema and Rahmat K. Fazli also spoke.