F.P. Report
ISLAMABAD: Speaker of National Assembly Asad Qaiser Thursday said it was collective responsibility of all to make Pakistan peaceful and prosperous for the future generation and provide them all the resources for development. “We must give persistent support to the deprived segments of the society so that they can play an important role for the development of the nation,” he added.
He expressed these views while addressing the meeting at Parliament House regarding the establishment of Model Welfare Villages.
The Speaker said that statistics regarding less privileged in the society were not encouraging. He mentioned that 22.8 million children aged between 5-16 years were out-of-school and 1.2 million children were on the streets of the major cities.
These children were leading hapless lives as they were denied basic rights of education, food and housing.
He also motioned that people with disabilities should be the special focus as about 27 million people were disable and their inclusion into economic activities could help to save the economy between 4.9% and 6.3% of GDP each year. He further said that more than 65% of Pakistan’s population was rural based mostly living in abject poverty. There was a need to intervene positively, he added.
The Speaker said that the Model Welfare Villages in the country would provide state of the art health, educational and recreational facilities to the marginalized communities under one roof.
These will be established through the collaboration between the Government and Pakistan’s leading charity organizations as there was a lack of integrated effort to cater to deprived and miserable segments of the society.
He said that social care services will be provided for the persons with disabilities, abandoned children, old citizens, widows, street children, special children, single women, transgenders and other marginalized communities in a single locality.
The meeting was attended by President Rashid Welfare Memorial Trust Organization Shabbir A. Khan, Patron-In-Chief, Pakistan Sweet Homes Zamurrad Khan,CEO Rashid Welfare Memorial Trust, Qazi Javed, Athar Bokhari, Aftab Hussain SUNDAS Foundation, Iqbal Haider, Saleem Iftekhar, Zafar Ahmed, Malik Arshad, Director Project, Pakistan Bait ul Maal, Muhammad Akhtar, Chairman, Kashmir Orphan Relief Trust (KORT), Sajid Baloch Director General, Benazir Income Support Program (BISP), Qazi Azmat Isa, Chief Executive Officer, PPAF and Dr. Khalil Ahmed Khan, Director Project, Khubaib Foundation.
