CHAIRMAN’S MESSAGE:

More than one billion people in the world live with some form of disability, of whom nearly 200 million experience considerable difficulties in functioning. In Pakistan, more than 18 million are people with disabilities, a figure that is nearly the population of Karachi – one of the biggest cities in the world. People with disabilities have poorer health outcomes, lower education achievements, less economic participation and higher rates of poverty than people without disabilities.

Therefore, welcome to “Friends of Paraplegics” (FOP), largest wheelchairs user group of its kind struggling for the rights and issues of people with all types of Physical impairments, from KP and the rest of the country. FOP makes a major contribution to the understanding of disability and its impact on individuals and society. As well as highlights the different barriers that people with disabilities face – attitudinal, physical, and financial. Addressing these barriers is within our reach. In fact, we have a moral duty to remove the barriers to participation, and to invest sufficient funding and expertise to unlock the vast potential of people with disabilities. Governments throughout the world can no longer overlook the hundreds of millions of people with disabilities who are denied access to health, rehabilitation, support, education and employment, and never get the chance to shine.

“Perceptions need to be revised and success stories established – so sympathy evolves to empathy and apathy becomes social action”