Photos: Egypt’s First Fashion Show For Girls With Special Needs

The Egyptian Benevolent Fund and the Egyptian Union for Mentally Challenged organized the country’s first fashion show for girls with special needs in Alexandria, Youm7 reported.

On the catwalk, a number of mentally challenged girls were escorted by models, offering a new collection of dresses designed by Egyptian designer Mahmoud Ghali.

The proceeds of the show will go to the fund and the Egyptian singer Hesham Abbas, who performed his songs during the show, also donated to the fund, according to a statement by the fund.

Preparing for the show took two months, as the girls were trained on presenting their shows on the catwalk, said the fund’s head of Board of Directors Mohamed Ali Youssef.

In December2014, the Cabinet announced it was planning to provide consolidated services to persons with special needs, as guaranteed by the 2014 constitution.

President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi announced Dec. 2, 2014 during the inauguration of the eighth round of the National Special Olympics at the Air Force Stadium in Cairo that four cities would be established for persons with special needs.

According to statements by former Minister of Health Maha Rabat in 2014, the actual number of people with disabilities in Egypt, per the World Health Organization statistics, is 9 million. The Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics reports only 500,000, while other civil society organizations report up to 15 million.