International Day for People with Disabilities
Thursday, December 5
International Day for People with Disabilities is celebrated on December 3. Georgia’s Prime Minister and several government members attended the event organized in the Hotel Radisson Blue Iveria. PM Irakli Gharibashvili addressed the audience and underlined that the image of the state is defined according to its attitude towards the people with disabilities. During his address, the Minister of Defense placed focus on the projects supporting the military servicemen wounded in the 2008 August War, and the peacekeeping missions. “It is very important that the people with physical disabilities feel the support and attention of the state. They are wonderful people and need nothing special except for the conditions equal to ordinary citizens. We have elaborated a special program to support wounded and disabled soldiers and cooperate with NGOs in this regard. It was a very important meeting personally for me. I learned about many initiatives and we will try to implement them in the MoD and in the army in cooperation with NGOs. We have concluded a memorandum with the Paralympics Committee, under which the wounded soldiers will take part in various sports competitions. Besides that we have already launched arrangement of infrastructure in the military units and bases, in order to allow the persons with disabilities to move freely around the territory. We have also planned implementation of the program for the next year to completely rehabilitate the military with amputated limbs and to provide them with cutting edge prosthetics to allow them to return to the service of the country,” said the Minister of Defense.
