Education minister in wheelchair basketball game

Education Minister Prodromos Prodromou on Monday participated in a wheelchair basketball game with students from a Nicosia based high school, as part of efforts to create awareness about people with disabilities in schools.

Under the slogan ‘I am also disabled’, the event took place at the Ayios Georgios high school, to help all children and their parents get an understanding what it must be like to have to use a wheelchair.

“Empathy is cultivated in schools, but beyond teaching it is very useful to have experiences,” Prodromou said in his address at the high school.

“It is a very direct way for the children to feel the difficulties that a fellow human being with a disability may face, but also the potential that they have and what they can achieve,” he added.

According to Prodromou, schools and the state have a responsibility to ensure equal treatment and the rights of people with disabilities.

To that end, “steps have been taken in recent years, we have a strategy, but we still have a lot to do”, Prodromou said.

The event was organised with the support of organisations of people with disabilities and the basketball teams of Hephaestus, Apollon, Nicosia Rollers and Apop Paphos.