Cerebral Palsy Foundation struggles to offer services due to lack of funds

AMMAN — Funds allocated to the Cerebral Palsy Foundation (CPF) are not enough to support its eight centres located around the Kingdom.

The foundation, established in 1977, provides care to children suffering from cerebral palsy, which damages the brain as it develops, affecting children’s cognitive and physical abilities, CPF President Nisreen Otaibi told The Jordan Times on Thursday.

She added that the CPF has five centres for physical, occupational, audiology and speech therapy and three schools to educate children with disabilities in different governorates around the Kingdom. 

Of the 21,528 children benefitting from the foundation, 9,959 children receive care in Amman’s centre, 3,992 in Zarqa and 3,630 in Irbid, according to the CPF’s statistics. 

In cooperation with the health and education ministries, the foundation aims at rehabilitating children with special needs, spreading awareness about cerebral palsy, providing high quality medical care, helping people with disabilities become active members of society, helping them to enter public schools and universities, Otaibi said. 

She added that the foundation hires more therapeutic than administrative staff members in order to “provide higher quality services”. 

“The national support is low,” Otaibi said, noting that the CPF’s financial struggle forced one of its centres to shut down.

Society should be made aware of cerebral palsy and give children affected by the medical condition “as much attention as they give orphans” in terms of financial and social support, said the official.

For his part, CPF Financial Manager Emad Shbool said that the foundation is funded by contributions made by different entities, ministries, individuals and private companies. 

He added that the CPF aspires to have more high-quality centres, staff members and services, expressing hopes for adequate funding to achieve these goals.