Samina Alvi, wife of President Dr Arif Alvi, said on Tuesday that public-private partnership aimed at welfare of the persons with disabilities could yield positive results. She was addressing a function, held in connection with the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, organised by Punjab Social Welfare and Bait-ul-Maal Department in collaboration with the WHO and Hum Mashal-e-Rah Foundation at Governor’s House. She said that Allah Almighty had blessed the differently abled persons with a lot of abilities and “we must provide them with opportunities to achieve successes in life”. She said, “We have gathered here to promote and create awareness regarding the rights and well-being of persons with disabilities in society at all levels.” She said that persons with disabilities face a lot of challenges in their lives which include access to education and healthcare facilities, adding that efforts were required to solve their problems. “Differently abled persons are important segment of society and many such people around us are contributing towards betterment of the country as per their capacities,” she added. Samina Alvi said that special steps were required to ensure accessibility and mobility of the persons with disabilities to include them in the mainstream of society. She said that she and President Dr Arif Alvi wanted to promote inclusive education and in this regard talks were being held with the education minister and schools. Efforts were being made for the last many years to provide equal rights to differently abled persons so that their sense of deprivation could be overcome, she added. Shed said that banks had introduced loan schemes for the persons with disabilities to make them financially independent. The wife of the president said that a meeting with National Vocational and Technical Training Commission (NAVTTC) was also held so that it could also extend their support to facilitate persons with disabilities. She stressed the need to create awareness among persons with disabilities about the loan schemes. Samina Alvi said that it was very important that differently abled persons have their national identity cards so that they might not face any problem at any level. Persons with disabilities could access more than 4,000 banks and this access would be across the country, she added. She said that it was highly important to impart IT skills to persons with disabilities so that they could face all emerging challenges of modern age. She stressed upon the need to shun indiscriminate behaviour with differently abled persons besides encouraging them materialize their dreams. She said that private sector should also give jobs to the persons with disabilities as per their abilities. She said that technical and vocational education was also imperative for the differently abled persons so they might not consider themselves alone in society. Later, a souvenir was given to Samina Alvi. Punjab Minister for Social Welfare and Bait-ul-Maal Syed Yawar Abbas Bukhari and WHO representatives also spoke on the occasion.