“Each handicap is like a hurdle in a steeplechase, and when you ride up to it, if you throw your heart over, the horse will go along, too.” Lawrence Bixby.
The word “handicapped” is commonplace to label those who have a physical or mental disability. Literally, it means a person that has to live his life with some sort of disadvantage.
Thus, some people think that calling a person “handicapped” is softer and more acceptable than calling a person “crippled.” I, for one, fail to see the difference.
In the world that we live in, many places exist in which to be handicapped means to be forced to beg on the streets (unless one is born in a rich family).
Little or no rights are provided to them so much so that they are forced to call the footpaths their permanent homes and the leftovers of others their every day source of food.
It is intriguing to see that where most people regard handicapped as nothing more than a mere piece of a good-for-nothing, there are still some able to change these views.
The Rising Sun Education and Welfare Society is a community based, not for profit organisation, working for the welfare of special (mentally disabled) children. It began its work in 1984 and has since risen to become one of the largest institutes in Pakistan providing education, speech therapy, vocational training and various other forms of rehabilitative facilities to over 400 children with cognitive impairment and autism.
USMAN JAVED
Lahore
