The Korean Rehabilitation Centre for Children with Disabilities inaugurated in March 2012 is located in the Munsu area of the capital city of Pyongyang. As an institution for the upbringing, edification and treatment of children with disabilities, it works to detect earlier and rehabilitate those children with such disabilities as autism, hearing impairment, cerebral palsy and Down’s syndrome.

“Our centre conducts nationwide survey and study of the children’s disabilities in development and, on the basis of this, detects those with disabilities as early as possible to adopt scientific rehabilitation approaches by symptom and age,” said Song Hyang Chun, head of the centre.

In fact, it is not so easy to take care of and educate children with disabilities who have difficulty responding even to their parents.

The centre has rooms for physical therapy, rehabilitation of hearing impairment and other treatment, in which nurses, teachers and physicians work together to apply various kinesitherapies through delicate exercises, exercises for intellectual development and balance exercises. They always stay with children with disabilities to help them in their daily routines.

Last year the centre succeeded in treating Ri Ju Won, a five-year-old boy with intellectual disability. Since the inauguration it has detected early and rehabilitated hundreds of children with disabilities. In this period the physicians, nurses and teachers have invented new therapies of treating by means of toys and devices and worked out a diagnostic and rehabilitation support program.

The centre encourages the children with disabilities to mingle with able-bodied peers as they conduct a variety of activities such as playing, sports, singing, dining and relaxation according to a broad curriculum that covers guiding education, mixed education, individual education and therapeutic education among others.

Like the ordinary nurseries, kindergartens and schools, the centre is supplied with dairy products and nutritious foodstuffs in line with the state-regulated daily nutritious foods supply norms.

The Law of the DPRK on Ensuring the Rights of the Disabled was adopted in September 2023, and state benefits for them are increasing day by day.

“Never have I been happier than today. My daughter who could not utter even the word ‘mother’ sang with other children,” said Choe Kyong Ok after she attended an event dedicated to the children with disabilities held to celebrate the June 1 International Children’s Day.

The children with disabilities are to board at the centre away from their parents for about a week, but they are all lively and free from worries.

Ham Kwang Hyok