Sunday 23 / November / 2025
Muscat: The sixth edition of the People with Disabilities Festival, organised by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Youth, will kick off on 1 December 2025 at the Sultan Qaboos Sports Complex in Bowsher.
This year's festival attracts a wide segment from various disability groups, alongside technical and administrative staff and volunteers. The festival is designed to be a comprehensive space to empower this group, highlight their capabilities, and cement their presence in the community.
The festival will be accompanied by 3 workshops to qualify personnel working with people with disabilities, presented by accredited international lecturers, in addition to a supporting village that will serve as a platform for cultural events and evening gatherings held during the festival period.
The sixth edition of the festival focuses on elevating the level of services provided, offering a supportive and stimulating environment for talents, and enhancing the role of people with disabilities in society through purposeful activities and diverse programmes. It also aims to open new avenues for Gulf participation and develop national cadres working in the sports and cultural fields through specialised training workshops.
This year's cultural programme stands out as one of the most important components of the festival. It includes a comprehensive art exhibition featuring works in plastic arts, ceramics, sculpture, Arabic calligraphy, photography, and digital art. Additionally, there are specialised sessions on recycling, face painting, instant photography, and drawing using the "Procreate" program in an interactive, live manner that allows works to be displayed on screen for the audience. The festival will also witness a theatrical performance celebrating the creativity of the participants and their ability for artistic expression.
On the sports side, the festival presents a Paralympic programme, combining individual and team games, including athletics, goalball for the blind, wheelchair basketball, badminton, shooting, boccia, table tennis, powerlifting, in addition to traditional, recreational games, and bowling. These competitions are held in sports facilities equipped according to international standards, with the opportunity for different types of disabilities to participate within their accredited categories.
The programme includes a series of specialised training sessions in refereeing, sports classification, and competition management, with the participation of international experts. This is within the framework of developing Omani cadres capable of overseeing competitions with high professionalism and elevating the level of sports dedicated to people with disabilities.
