Thursday, September 2, 2010

Dubai’s largest special needs centre could shut down unless it urgently raises funds, a school official has warned.

The cash-strapped Dubai Special Needs Centre has been severely hit by the economic downturn and needs new donors to keep it going.

The school provides education for some of Dubai’s most severely physically and mentally challenged children.

“Shutting down is a real danger,” said communications coordinator Najeeb Patel. “We’ve seen a big drop off in sponsors this year and we still don’t have official charity status.”

Patel said the school has to team up with officially recognised charities to make public appeals but said it can take months to see results.

The school provides vital help for the parents of more than 130 students and recovers less than half of its dhs6 million budget from school fees.

Pupils come from as far as Al Ain and Sharjah to the centre, which includes special sensory stimulation rooms for the most severely challenged children.

Staff have launched an urgent online appeal for funds and are hoping people will give generously during Ramadan.

“The air conditioning isn’t working and it’s getting worse,” said Gulshan Kavarana, a volunteer teacher and mother of a child with severe disabilities.

She described how her 12-year-old daughter and 30 other children have been trapped in a corridor where the air conditioning is still running.

Like several parents at the school, Kavarana described the centre as “fantastic” but said it urgently needs funds. Her daughter, Zara, cannot sweat because of a rare condition called Dravet’s Syndrome and is especially at risk from the soaring temperatures in the building.  “Because she can’t sweat, she can have a seizure in the heat. We have 80 people crammed into one small area in the corridor,” she said.

The centre needs dhs600,000 to replace the air conditioning but has yet to receive charity status after years of trying.

The school’s student coordinator, Shirley Bruce, said: “We will come through, we always find a way. But this is a tougher situation than we have seen before. We need some generous people to help us to get through this difficult time.”

Log on to www.dcsneeds.ae to make a donation.