Originally published on the Global Voices website on December 03, 2022.
The theme for this International Day of Persons with Disabilities, 2022 is, “Transformative solutions for inclusive development: the role of innovation in fuelling an accessible and equitable world.”
On this International Day of Persons with Disabilities, there isn’t much to celebrate for families of people with disabilities and people living with disabilities in Trinidad and Tobago. Hardly a day goes by that we are not reminded of our disadvantaged position in society, our zero level, totem pole position from access to early intervention, assessments and therapies, to education and everything else along the trajectory of life.
Background
The World Health Organisation (WHO) states that 15 per cent of the world’s population, live with disabilities and this figure is growing due to population growth, medical advances and the ageing process. People living with disabilities are the world’s largest minority. In Trinidad and Tobago that would be approximately 210,000 people living with some sort of a disability.
Even though Trinidad and Tobago has signed on to various international treaties, including the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in 2014, we still have not moved vigorously to meet the evolving needs of those living with disabilities.
Societal barriers remain in place.
The absence of a legislative framework to promote and protect the interests of those living with disabilities and their families, creates occupational apartheid. With no form of redress available, the ability to maximize the human potential is compromised from as early as birth, and continues on a downward trajectory throughout the course of a lifetime, unless parents who have the financial means, are able to privately access each needed service, that acts as a bridge that leads to a more positive life trajectory for their child.
Impediments to progress include:
- Access to early intervention and disability-related healthcare services
- Special education services
- Employment opportunities
- Housing
- Transportation services
- Long-term care of the most vulnerable in our society.
Niccolo Machiavelli said there are three types of people: Those who get it, those who get it when you explain it to them, and those who don’t get it.
We believe that there is a grey bridge that connects all three (3) categories. Let’s call it the Care Bridge. We know. It’s not sexy. We’ve been trying to make disabilities sexy for the last nine (9) years but it seems like the stigma of “less than”, “those poor people” or the pacifist exclamation of “that is God’s work” is deeply entrenched in the human psyche as most people even if they get it, or get it when you explain it to them, still don’t care enough to include people with visible and invisible disabilities into this rapidly evolving society and world in which we live.
The efforts of Lady Thelma Hochoy and Rose Miles in 1961, to build the Lady Hochoy Home for children and people with disabilities was a landmark intervention to remove children with intellectual disabilities from The House of Refuge in St. James.
Sixty-one years later, even in the evolving face of medicine and science, and especially in light of new and improved approaches to treating people with intellectual disabilities and invisible disabilities, Trinidad and Tobago seems intent on maintaining its ad hoc approach to disability that does not ensure the full integration and participation of people who live with disabilities, into the society.
Our community does not need platitudes and empty acknowledgements on one designated day. We don’t need bureaucrats and technocrats with a clear disconnect from our lived experiences dictating to us what they are going to put in place for people living with disabilities. What we are desperately in need of is leadership that cares and understands that the quality of life experienced by people in a society depends on how its most vulnerable are treated.
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