The Paralympics will provide the ideal opportunity for the Chinese public to improve its awareness and understanding of people with physical disabilities, a senior Beijing official said yesterday.
Li Caimao, director of the municipal government's disabled persons' affairs committee, said: "Society's lack of knowledge about disabled people is what leads to misunderstanding."
But staging the Paralympic Games, which runs from Sept 6-17, will go a long way to improving that, he said.
Li, who has suffered with polio since the age of 3, said in the past his condition hindered his attempts to win a place at a top university.
"There are no such barriers to getting into college these days. Everyone has equal rights. But there is still discrimination. Changing the attitudes of the public takes time, but the Paralympics will help,” he said.
China has 83 million disabled people, about 6 percent of the population, and about 1 million live in the capital, he said.
More than 200,000 disabled people from Beijing have been or will be involved in Olympic and Paralympic-related activities, and 12,000 applied to work as volunteers.
Sixty-three disabled volunteers will work at Paralympic venues and 680 disabled performers will be involved in the Games' opening and closing ceremonies.
1,500 disabled artists will take part in events at Beijing's cultural squares, while 10 blind masseurs will provide relief to athletes at sports venues.
He said one of the advantages of staging the Paralympics is that it brings the needs of disabled people to the fore and that as part of the preparation , subways, airports and railway stations have been equipped with special facilities for the disabled.
Zhao Chunluan, head of the Beijing Disabled Persons' Federation, announced on Sunday that 20,000 disabled people and their families will be invited to watch the Paralympics live..
Of the 1.66 million tickets on sale, the best seats at the most popular events have all been reserved for people with disabilities.
Also, every volunteer for the Paralympics, most of whom are able bodied, will undergo about 20 hours of training on how to help those with disabilities.
Questions:
1. What percentage of China’s population is disabled?
2. How many disabled volunteers will assist at venues during the Paralympics?
3. Who are the best seats at the most popular events reserved for?
Answers:
1. 6%.
2. 63.
3. People with disabilities.
（英语点津 Helen 编辑）
Josephine McDermott is a freelance journalist from England. Specializing in print news, she has worked on weekly and daily London newspaper titles as both a reporter and a news editor. Josephine moved to Shanghai last year to join China Daily’s Shanghai Bureau and is working for chinadaily.com.cn for the duration of the Olympics and the Paralympics.
