“My son used to be depressed before he was admitted into this rehab centre. But now learning alphabets, counting music and dancing from the teachers here, he is really happy. He is changing day by day and all my family feel tearfully thankful.” – Says the mother of Choe Kum Jin, a boy with hearing disability staying in the Korean Rehabilitation Centre for Children with Disability in Taedonggang District, Pyongyang.
At the moment, the centre looks after over 40 children for rehabilitation, nursing and education. Inaugurated on March 29, 2013, it has carried on the work of rehabilitation, nursing, general instruction and special early-age education for disabled children. Ri Kwang, officer of the Central Committee of the Korea Federation for the Protection of the Disabled said that it is duty of his federation to find out the disabled children whose partents are relucant to introduce and help them grow happily without any worries, and that the State bears all those expenses.
The rehabilitation centre is provided with all necessary conditions and environment such as nursering rooms, teaching rooms, a general playroom, an intelligent playroom and a physiotherapy room. The house pays primary attention to rehabilitation of those children with different kinds of disabilities like abnormal hearing, introvert paralysis, autism and Down’s syndrome. According to Kim Hyon Hui, doctor of nutrition and rehabilitation, they are treating the disabled children in cooperation with the Okryu Children’s Hospital.
Rehabilitation treatment, nursing and education of the disabled children are done in consonance with their mental qualities.
Thanks to the efforts of the workers of the centre who put their heart and soul in the treatment and nursing of the children like their parents, there have been successes in physical rehabilitation and intelectual development of the disabled children. Now many of them can read and write the mother tongue and do some counting, singing and dancing. Receiving warm applause from the audience on many commemorative performance stages they have loudly sung the song “We Are The Happiest in The World“:
Blue is the sky and happy is my heart.
The sound of an accordion rings out far and wide.
What a wonderful homeland we have
A land filled with harmony and hope.
On April 1 last, the state supplied the primary school-aged children in the rehabilitation centre with the complete sets of new school uniforms, school things and satchels just as it did for the normal children. The disabled children staying there say unanimously that their centre is the home of happiness.
Building on the experience it has gained in the habilitation and treatment of the disabled children, the centre is conducting exchange and cooperation with its counterparts in foreign countries.