The municipal government of Shanghai has listed training of mentally-handicapped residents one of its top ten projects for 2005, the first local government program to care for this group of people, an official said Saturday.

According to the plan, 10,000 people, aged between 18 and 35, will be chosen from the 70,000 mentally-handicapped people in Shanghai. Those chosen will attend training in rehabilitation and labor skills, which are designed to improve their living skills and capability to adapt to the social environment.

It has become a common practice of local governments in China to promise to do "something for the people" at the beginning of each year.

Previously, the promises mainly covered housing, communications, raising farmer's income and rebuilding infrastructure. In recent years the commitments have expanded to such fields as environmental protection, employment and education.

Apart from training on mentally-handicapped people, the Shanghai municipal government has also promised to create 500,000 jobs, improve and provide easy access to medical services for 1.4 million seniors aged 70 and older, construct housing for people evacuated for major urban projects and provide professional training for 50,000 farmers, among others.

Sociologist Cao Jijun said that placing equal importance on serving the mentally-handicapped group as to other projects fully reflects the government's concept of "putting people first."

Shanghai, which will host the 2007 Special Olympics, has set an ambitious goal to provide an eight-week sports training to 50,000 local mentally-handicapped people before the games.

Currently, China has 12 million mentally-handicapped people, six million of whom are minors.

A welfare project, which calls on people from all walks of life to care for the mentally-handicapped people, and to support and provide services to meet normal demand of this special group, is going on in China.

Source: Xinhua