Opening of Al Wakrah Special Needs and Elderly Water Walkway

The municipality of Al Wakrah opened yesterday morning the sustainable sea walk for people with special needs and the elderly on Al Wakrah public beach. The project is 85 meters long and 2 meters wide and serves more than 33,000 people at the state level and about 3,190 in the city of Al-Wakra. The opening of the walk was attended by M. Mohammed Hassan Al-Naimi, the director of Al Wakrah Municipality, HE Mrs. Marianne Kamstra, Ambassador of the Kingdom of the Netherlands to the state, and a number of administrators and citizens in Al Wakrah municipality.

In a press statement to Al-Raya on the sidelines of the opening of the project, Al Wakrah Municipality Director Mohammed Hassan Al-Naimi said: The walkway comes at the request of many citizens in the city of Al-Wakra, especially the elderly who applied to the municipality to implement this project, as well as to realize Qatar's national vision and the strategy of the Ministry of Municipality to achieve sustainable development in partnership with various sectors and members of society. The project will benefit more than 33,000 people at the state level and about 3,190 people in the city of Al Wakrah. The director of the Al Wakrah municipality said: The project was implemented in coordination with the Road and Public Space Beautification Supervisory Commission and in collaboration with private sector institutions as part of community responsibility initiatives. Al Wakrah municipality welcomes all proposals that contribute to improving services provided to all segments of society, and it also supports the initiatives of school students and youth, especially those related to environmental sustainability.

Suha Mahmoud, an engineer in charge of sustainability in Al Wakrah municipality and supervisor of the Sustainable Sea Walkway project, said the project was designed to serve people with special needs and the elderly. She said the walkway is 85 meters long and can reach its users by reaching the nearest point of the sea and ending in an 8-meter roundabout.

She said the walkway includes service facilities such as a restroom designed with recycled materials and decorated with plants and agricultural ponds to provide environmental sustainability criteria. Work on the project began in the first week of January and concluded last Thursday, she said, noting that the municipality has been keen to speed up the implementation of high-quality sustainability conditions in order to bring happiness to the hearts of the elderly, people the special needs and their families. The walkway will also serve visitors during the 2022 World Cup, she said.

Engineer Suha Mahmoud said that the project allows these groups to reach the nearest point directly overlooking the sea, pointing out that the idea of implementing it came through research submitted by two students from the Al-Khansa Primary School for Girls, stressing the municipality's keenness to take advantage of such kind of student initiatives to involve schools in service projects in a way that meets the level of aspirations and urban renaissance reached by the State of Qatar.

Suha Mahmoud, an engineer, said sustainability is important in the implementation of projects. The municipality of Al Wakra is keen to implement sustainable and environmentally friendly projects in line with the Qatar National Vision 2030, which nominated the municipality to win the UNESCO Prize for Learning Cities.

The municipal strategy to implement youth initiatives to find solutions to environmental sustainability played a major role in the municipality's winning the global award, she said. At the end of her talk, engineer Suha thanked all those who contributed to the implementation of this project, foremost among them HE the Minister of Municipality for the continuous support to make the project a success, and Mr. Mohammed Hassan Al Nuaimi, Director of Al Wakrah Municipality.