Kingdom of Bahrain - eGovernment Portal

Special Attention to people with special needs

To ensure sustainable development, equality between all citizens and “leaving no one behind”, the Kingdom of Bahrain has always paid great attention to all vulnerable groups within the community and especially the people with disability and special needs as these groups are an integrated part of the community and its overall development.

The people with disability and special needs are supported and a core focus in the community by law and many entities play key role this field such as Ministry of Labour & Social Development , Ministry of Education , Ministry of Interior, Information & eGovernment Authority , Ministry of Health , Ministry of Information Affairs , Ministry of Works , Electricity and Water Authority , Ministry of Industry , and many related NGO's that provides numerous facilities through social support, healthcare and training skills to be integrated into society and the business market.

Care and Rehabilitation

The Ministry of Labour & and Social Development is the primary care giver to the vulnerable groups including people with disability and special needs. They provide them with the welfare offering and many services to support their employment, training, education, guidance consultations, conducting specialised researches, psychiatric diagnosis, physical, functional therapy and financial disbursement for their caregivers as disability allowance. The ministry has dedicated a special hotline facilitated with video call and sign-language for on-spot support. There are more than 9 centres throughout Bahrain dedicated to people with special needs, in addition to online services to benefit from and with the support of the hot-line facility.

Integration in Education

The Ministry of Education has taken serious steps to maintain equality and harmony among the community. MOE has initiated to integrate the people with disability and special needs in public schools with giving special focus on preparing the appropriate environment in term of awareness, facilities and special training in dealing and interacting with disabled people.

The Schools accept special needs cases without discrimination and integrat them with other students. There are around 175 schools that have implemented the special education programme in different levels of education set by the Ministry.

Examples of the schools have implemented the Special Education programme based on disability type such as:

• The list of intellectual disabilities Schools .

• The list of hearing disabilities schools

• The list of visual disability schools

• The list of physical disability schools

• The list of schools contains students with autism spectrum disorder

• Rehabilitation centres affiliated to the Ministry of Education

Visible Successes

YouTube Videos

Student Hussein Al - Halwaji from Hittin primary school for boys (YouTube, 57 seconds, Arabic only)
Zainab Saleh from Al Noor Secondary School for Girls in the challenge of reading Arabic despite her visual disability (YouTube, 45 seconds, Arabic only)
Bahrain celebrates TIMSS 2015 international test results (YouTube, 55 seconds, Arabic only)
Participation of Othman Bin Affan Preparatory School for Boys on World Volunteer Day (YouTube, 59 seconds, Arabic only)
Workshop "Ceramic structures" (YouTube, 1 minute, Arabic only)
World Autism Day (YouTube, 1 minute, Arabic only)
The Ministry of Education honors a number of special needs students (YouTube, 1 minute, Arabic only)
Launch of the Press of the Blind (YouTube, 1 minute, Arabic only)
People with special needs excel in the 2015 TEMS tests (YouTube, 57 seconds, Arabic only)
A student in the primary stage devises a device to clean the air (YouTube, 1 minute, Arabic only)
Student Juwairiya Siddiqui devises an air sterilization device at Al Oroba primary school for girls (YouTube, 1 minute, Arabic only)

Initiatives and support

There are also other initiative to integrate and empower people with disabilities and special needs in different fields including the sport field led by Bahrain Olympic Committee and Bahrain Sports Federation for Disabilities . Moreover, there are many humanitarian activities have been initiated by His Highness Shaikh Khalid bin Hamad Al Khalifa, First Deputy President of the Supreme Council for Youth and Sports to incubate people with disabilities and engage them in sport tournaments such as horse riding, football, and many more.