Dagestan hosts festival of children with disabilities

On December 7, Makhachkala held the sixth cultural and sports festival of children with disabilities under the motto "From victories in sports to victories in life".

"It was a real holiday for the children who had long prepared for competitions. Despite their limited capacities, the children showed real sporting character and exhibited their will," said Gamid Gitinov, an official from the Committee for Sports, Tourism and Youth Affairs of Makhachkala.

At the festival, children with disabilities competed in chess, checkers, darts and the art of drawing.

At the closing of the festival, its participants were reported that on December 6 the team of invalids playing rugby returned to Makhachkala. They took part in the international tournament in Spain, where they took the first place, having defeated their strongest counterparts from Germany and Holland in the final and semi-final.

Dagestan has designed special social programmes aimed to support children with disabilities.

Thus, the Republic's Centre for Distance Learning was established for the children, who cannot go to school but have no contraindications to using computer. As of September 1, 2011, 187 children were trained remotely in the republic. It is planned that before the end of 2012, the distance learning will cover 90 percent of children who need it.

According to the Ministry of Labour and Social Care of Dagestan, now the republic has 260,000 residents with disabilities, of them, 32,000 are children.

According to Asiyat Guseinova, a chief expert of the main office of the medical and social examination of Dagestan, in recent years the republic faces a negative trend: the number of children with hereditary, congenital and perinatal pathologies, mental problems and chronic disorders of internal organs is on the rise.