CAIRO - His disability did not stand as an obstacle in achieving his success, Tawba insisting on challenging all the difficulties that face disabled people. He studied and graduated from an engineering faculty, electronics section and he is now working in a power station. After getting work and feeling personal stability, he decided to marry and began to search for his partner for about one year on specialised Facebook pages. He finally found her (Abeer), who had also suffered infantile paralysis, on the ‘Marriage of the people who have will and challenge' Facebook page. Abeer was insistent on not marrying other than someone who also had a disability, as she was convinced that no one else could appreciate her disability if he hasn't one. She wanted a husband who had felt the same suffering as she has endured. Reham el-Masry, who launched this Facebook page in 2008, felt the same feelings as Abeer, and this was one of the reasons that pushed her into launching the page. "When I saw that many of the handicapped, especially girls, are being deceived in the name of love by some people who are not serious in having a commitment and in caring about the feelings of these girls, I decided to take action," Reham said. "I launched this page in order to participate in solving the marriage problem of the disabled," she added. She said that an application had to be completed by everyone wishing to marry, who should enter their personal data and details of their disability and should also write of the disability they would accept in their partner. After about two years of being just friends on the Facebook page, Reham realised that the members of the page have really come to know one another, so she decided to organise an event to make them all meet together in person for the first time. She thinks that it is better to see your prospective partner in reality in order to judge if you would accept his or her disability or not. The Facebook page really succeeded in helping 16 disabled members to find their partners. All the other members of the page celebrated the weddings of their friends. "The society have always sees the disabled as lacking all their rights and do not even the right to live, so I called the first event have ‘Let's start a new life'" Reham recalled. She invited a doctor in genetic engineering, to explain what disabilities are hereditary and which are not. Reham explained that the disabled always feel afraid of having children with the same disability, so I wanted to calm them and let them know what science said about this problem. "Whoever suffers from a physical disability, considered that his or her disability is one of the most difficult tests from God that may face anyone in their life," Reham, 30, said. Life experience taught her that disability may be a reason that pushes people either to success or failure. She said that the disabled are also confronting many other problems, such as the non-application of the ‘five-per-cent law', which says that every governmental institution should have five per cent of disabled employees. In addition to this inactive law, there is no appropriate transport or access for the disabled; they feel that the Government doesn't care about them and the support and appropriate devices they need. Statistics suggest that the disabled in Egypt comprise about 12 million. Reham is also one of the founder members of an association that also cares for the disabled and tries to solve their problems and facilitate their integration into the community. Through her Facebook page she gathered disabled people and enabled them to know others through holding events, trips and parties and making their own society, as a social activity of the association. "After the development of the idea of the Facebook page, through meeting all together almost once per month, the idea of fulfilling the marriage dream for all the disabled became much easier than it was on the page," Reham said. "Through these gatherings a man and a woman may feel that they like and admire each other and then their love story begins until they fulfil their dream," she added happily.
