The Al-Amal Foundation for People with Special Needs began documenting cases of disability in the western countryside of Aleppo with the aim of developing a database for all the people with special needs in the region.
The documentation, undertaken in cooperation with Mada Center, covered more than 20 villages in Aleppo’s western countryside. They have documented over 900 cases so far and the vast majority of cases are war-related.
Speaking to Zaman al-Wasl, Hussein al-Shun, a media activist and one of the project supervisors, said that the foundation has so far documented 7 cases people who have lost an eye, two cases where the people lost both eyes, 70 cases of amputation, 10 cases of partial paralysis, and various cases where shrapnel and breaks caused permanent disabilities. In addition to these, they have documented several cases of warp bones, shortness in one limb, neuropathy cases, cut tendons, shrapnel splinters lodged in the head, and bone calcification.
Al-Shun explained that in the cases they documented, the males were aged between 18-33. Among the cases documented over 50 of the cases were women and 100 were children.
The war victims suffer from marginalization, neglect and the absence of any institution responsible for following up on their health needs and their needs on an ongoing basis. Al-Shun explained that he and his colleagues in the foundation were aware of the extent of this neglect and felt the issue acutely because they are themselves people with special needs. He continued that they noticed that many organizations create projects related to people with disabilities in liberated area but only for short periods of time and then the projects end and are forgotten.
“The project idea was born from our recognition of the importance of documentation and statistics for the work of any institution to organize the work, to know the needs of the injured, and the types of services they need on the material and moral level for the work to be credible and transparent for any organization that wants to provide services in an orderly manner.”
Al-Shun pointed out that the al-Amal Foundation for People with Special Needs has a statistical program to record the data in the foundation database. Their database records the name of the person, the type and nature of the injury or disability: war related, congenital, accident. They also record what kind of services the person requires: wheelchair, crutches, medicines, physiotherapy, medical follow-up, and surgical procedure.
Regarding the difficulties facing the documentation project, al-Shun pointed out that “One of the most important difficulties is building of trust between the persons with special needs and the Foundation, and this was facilitated as all the people overseeing the project and the Foundation are themselves people with special needs, and share the same aches and needs as those they are engaging with.”
Al-Shun added that “There are also financial difficulties because the Foundation is new, including the guaranteeing special transport for critical situations. The Foundation currently relies on donations from members and individual donations as it includes a donations box.”
The primary focus of Foundation is on providing for people with special needs’ emergency medical needs, providing the means for them to integrate into their local societies, and continuing the challenge and not given in to despair and frustration.
Al-Amal Foundation for People with Special Needs seeks to provide employment opportunities for this socially disadvantaged group, secure their health, logistical and material needs, build and develop their abilities and talents, and help them overcome the obstacles facing them under the current situation. The Foundation seeks to increase the participation of women with special needs in the decision-making, process. It also aims to establish a center for psycho-social support to offer services for people with special needs in the liberated regions of Syria.
