NGO to help disabled North Koreans

A Belgium-based NGO has plans to send over $1 million in aid this year to North Korea to help the disabled there.

The Belgium branch of Handicap International has earmarked $1.12 million for this year to support medical and rehabilitation facilities in North Korea to promote the health and wellbeing of the disabled there, according to reports from the Voice of America, citing an e-mail from the agency’s official Dominique Delvigne.

The budget is also to be spent for such projects as nurturing teachers in charge of special education for visually- and hearing-impaired people, and assisting the North Korean Federation for the Protection of the Disabled, the official added.

The NGO, established in 1982 to help disabled and vulnerable people began to help physically challenged people in North Korea in 1998 at the request of the KFPD.

According to the report on disability published by the World Health Organization in 2013, some 3.4 percent of the population in North Korea suffered from a disability as of 2007.

[Yonhap]

This entry was posted in Humanitarian Aid and Relief by Grant Montgomery.