TEHRAN – President Hassan Rouhani inaugurated 2,400 community-based rehabilitation (CBR) centers across the country through a video conference on Monday.

The CBR centers, called Mosbat-e Zendegi (literally meaning life plus), are small welfare organizations that provide about 22 services to clients, including responding to clients, assessing local needs, identifying volunteers and donors, educating the disabled, training life skills, etc.

Of these, 208 centers have been set up in 16 cities of Tehran province, Amin Shahrokhi, head of Tehran welfare organization said, IRNA reported.

The lack of infrastructure and urban adaptation had created problems for the disabled to move around the city and refer to the welfare organization so that these centers will support their surrounding neighborhoods, he explained.

By setting up these centers, persons with disabilities can receive the services at their place of residence, as the staff will go to the clients’ house and assess their condition, he added.

Over 1.3m persons with disabilities live in Iran

Pirouz Hanachi, the mayor of Tehran, said in December 2019 that over 1.3 million people suffering from disabilities live in the country and the figure rises by 50,000 every year.

Majlis [the Iranian parliament] approved both general outlines and details of a bill on the rights of persons with disabilities in January 2018. Development of disability-friendly cities, free transportation, health insurance, free education, job creation, housing loans, and fewer working hours are some of the articles of the law.

Since the approval of the law, education for students with disabilities has been provided in Azad universities, subsidies for patients with spinal cord injury as well as disability care centers have been increased, in addition to residential units to families having members with disabilities.

Asghar Shirzadi, chairman of the board of the Iranian association of the disabled, said on Saturday that it still seems that the related organizations are not very willing to implement the law.

Disability prevalence worldwide

About 15 percent of the world's population lives with some form of disability, of whom 2-4 percent experience significant difficulties in functioning.

The global disability prevalence is higher than previous WHO estimates, which date from the 1970s and suggested a figure of around 10 percent. This global estimate for disability is on the rise due to population aging and the rapid spread of chronic diseases, as well as improvements in the methodologies used to measure disability.

FB/MG