A shopping mall here has agreed to donate one per cent of its revenues from daily sales during the "Dubai - the City that Cares 2000" promotion to the Rashid Paediatric Therapy Centre. The 38-day Town Centre Mall campaign will provide the school, which educates disabled children, with a lump sum at the end of the promotion.

The money may be used in part towards providing a new purpose-built facility to help improve the learning environment of the centre's 85 pupils. Director Mariam Othman said, "We are really grateful for this move because we rely totally on donations to survive. We don't receive any government support, and it's these kinds of drives that keep us open and helping our students.

"We recently launched a raffle draw which wasn't as successful as we'd hoped because it was happening at a time when most people were donating to the Palestinian cause. "We were grateful when the Economic Department agreed to run the promotion for a longer period, but we were still disappointed by the funds raised.

"This move by Town Centre is excellent because it has come at just the right time." She said she wasn't sure how much, if any, of the final amount would go towards the new facility. "We may put 50 per cent of it towards the new building, but some of it will have to be used for the general running of the present school. It would be good if all donations could be for our expansion project, but that is simply not possible.

"At the moment our accommodation is really preventing us from getting the best out of our students because it's so small." Debbie Russo, Mall Manageress for Town Centre, said, "We were thrilled to hear we'd been allocated Rashid Paediatric Therapy Centre as our designated charity because we already work closely with them all year round.

"We can't disclose an estimate of the final sum yet, but sales are picking up because of the season, and our sales are around Dh100,000 per day." Mohammed Al Zarooni, Chairman of the Al Zarooni Group, said, "We've always been involved in charitable activities, although this is the first time we've donated one per cent of our sales. We like to have variety and so we never repeat the same promotion and this seems to be a good way of helping these children."

Jamal Thaniya, board member of the Rashid Paediatric Therapy Centre, said, "We aim to convey these children's creativeness and skills and prove that despite their disabilities, they are an integral part of humanity, and constructively share in society's development."