TEHRAN – Barekat Charity Foundation, affiliated with the Headquarters for Executing the Order of the Imam, provided 1,400 residential units to Iranian families with two or more members with disabilities.

"Last year (March 2020-March 2021), a joint memorandum of understanding was signed between the Headquarters for Executing the Order of the Imam, the Welfare Organization, and the Housing Foundation to build houses for families with two or more disabled members.

After a year, 1400 units in all 31 provinces of the country have been built and prepared and will be delivered to their owners," Seyed Mostafa Seyed-Hashemi, deputy coordinator of the Headquarters for Executing the Order of the Imam said.

So far, 4,000 community-based economic projects for the disabled have been implemented by the Barekat Foundation, he stated.
He went on to say that we signed a contract to build 160,000 residential units for the deprived over the next two years, of which 50,000 units have been constructed throughout the country.

Over 1.3m persons with disabilities live in Iran

Pirouz Hanachi the former 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; more attention is required.

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