The Trinidad and To­ba­go Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Ther­a­py As­so­ci­a­tion (TTO­TA) and the Speech -Lan­guage & Au­di­ol­o­gy As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (SLAATT) came to­geth­er last Wednes­day to launch TEAM Hope 2013. Hope is the acronym for How Or­di­nary Peo­ple do Ex­tra­or­di­nary things and that is ex­act­ly what the team was able to ac­com­plish in 2009 and 2011 when they took fifty peo­ple from all walks of life and got them ready to com­pete in and com­plete the Rain­bow Triathlon in To­ba­go.

Re­cent­ly, they host­ed the In­for­ma­tion Par­ty at Joseph's Restau­rant in Mar­aval, at which many re­turn­ing Hopees and many new faces showed up, all ea­ger to com­mit to next year's ef­fort. The mis­sion of Team Hope is to raise aware­ness of the need for full oc­cu­pa­tion­al ther­a­py, speech lan­guage ther­a­py and au­di­ol­o­gy ser­vices for the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go who need it. In or­der to do this Team Hope will again re­cruit 50 or­di­nary peo­ple who will take up the chal­lenge of com­plet­ing the Neal and Massy Rain­bow Cup Triathlon in June 2013.

The ath­letes will al­so raise $4,000 to­wards TTO­TA and SLAATT mis­sions. Priya Gomes, Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Ther­a­pist and Team Hope Co­or­di­na­tor told the packed room, "Oc­cu­pa­tion­al ther­a­pists are health pro­fes­sion­als who help peo­ple across the lifes­pan to par­tic­i­pate in the tasks they want and need to do through the ther­a­peu­tic use of every­day ac­tiv­i­ties (oc­cu­pa­tions).

"It is our be­lief that peo­ple have a right to full par­tic­i­pa­tion in com­mu­ni­ty life de­spite men­tal or phys­i­cal health sta­tus or dis­abil­i­ty. Ap­prox­i­mate­ly ten per cent of a pop­u­la­tion is es­ti­mat­ed to have some type of dis­abil­i­ty and there are on­ly sev­en prac­tic­ing oc­cu­pa­tion­al ther­a­pists with two of them work­ing in the pub­lic health­care sys­tem. That's why we need to ed­u­cate the pub­lic about the pro­fes­sion so they can de­mand these ser­vices when they utilise our pub­lic hos­pi­tals."

Keisha Lind­say, speech-lan­guage ther­a­pist and Chair­man of the Oc­cu­pa­tion­al and Speech Lan­guage Ther­a­py Board al­so spoke of the many chal­lenges faced in her line of work. She stat­ed, "In Trinidad and To­ba­go there is a crit­i­cal need for the ser­vices pro­vid­ed by a speech-lan­guage pathol­o­gist, for both young and old. With stroke in­ci­dents and trau­mat­ic brain in­juries on the rise, the de­mand con­tin­ues to in­crease.

This is be­cause re­gard­less of on­set, age or skill lev­el, hu­man be­ings main­tain a de­sire to com­mu­ni­cate and to eat. Speech ther­a­py is more than just cur­ing "tied-tongue" and stut­ter­ing, it's about fa­cil­i­tat­ing the de­vel­op­ment and im­prove­ment of the com­mu­ni­ca­tion skills that are need­ed to con­nect with each oth­er."

Lind­say not­ed that there were 11 speech lan­guage ther­a­pists and on­ly two au­di­ol­o­gists in Trinidad and To­ba­go. Of the 11 speech lan­guage ther­a­pists, on­ly one lo­cat­ed in To­ba­go is pub­licly em­ployed. "As with oc­cu­pa­tion­al ther­a­py, we need the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go to be­gin to recog­nise the need for well-paid ther­a­pists with­in the pub­lic ser­vice who can pro­vide ser­vices to fam­i­lies who can­not af­ford to pay the prices charged in pri­vate prac­tice. This is part of a wake-up call for all cit­i­zens," Ms Lind­say added.

To mo­ti­vate each Team Hope par­tic­i­pant, each ath­lete will al­so be sym­bol­i­cal­ly paired with an ho­n­oured team­mate, some­one who needs oc­cu­pa­tion­al ther­a­py, speech lan­guage ther­a­py or au­di­ol­o­gy ser­vices, as an in­spi­ra­tion for them to com­plete the chal­lenges. The au­di­ence was moved by Ms Hazel Toney, the moth­er of four-year-old Ky­laan Gor­don who is di­ag­nosed with cere­bral pal­sy and at­tend­ed the event with his par­ents. She spoke of the im­pact oc­cu­pa­tion­al and speech lan­guage ther­a­py was mak­ing in his de­vel­op­ment.

An­oth­er guest speak­er, Ar­lene Ham­blin, 2011 Team Hope par­tic­i­pant, spoke of her fear of wa­ter pri­or to the com­pe­ti­tion. She was high in praise of all the coach­es that gave of their time to as­sist in this wor­thy cause. Ham­blin stat­ed that her in­volve­ment in Team Hope has been a life chang­ing ex­pe­ri­ence and if she can do it any­one can. The team will be trained by ex­pert coach­es Ja­son Good­ing, nine-time triathlon cham­pi­on and Michael Nyarko, Mas­ters swim coach and two-time ju­nior na­tion­al triathlon cham­pi­on.

The or­gan­is­ing team is con­fi­dent they would pull it off again this year as they raised $239,000 in 2011 for TTO­TA. They al­so boast­ed of hav­ing sev­er­al Team Hope par­tic­i­pants win­ning medals in their re­spec­tive age cat­e­gories at the 2011 Rain­bow Cup Triathlon.

Through Team Hope, a unique com­mu­ni­ty-based fund-rais­ing and ad­vo­ca­cy pro­gramme, TTO­TA and SLAATT plan to raise pub­lic aware­ness of the sit­u­a­tion of oc­cu­pa­tion­al and speech ther­a­pies as well as au­di­ol­o­gy ser­vices in the coun­try, to cre­ate in­formed am­bas­sadors for peo­ple with spe­cial needs and to raise funds to sup­port var­i­ous ini­tia­tives and goals of the as­so­ci­a­tions. It is for these rea­sons that At­lantic has joined Team Hope as Gold Spon­sors while Ask Lead­er­ship Foun­da­tion has come on as Sil­ver Spon­sors. Cas­ca­dia Ho­tel and Con­fer­ence Cen­ter has al­so made a gen­er­ous do­na­tion.

Team Hope Co-or­di­na­tor, Priya Gomes, closed the evening off by reg­is­ter­ing 33 peo­ple im­me­di­ate­ly and pre­sent­ing prizes cour­tesy Gold Spon­sor At­lantic; Joseph's restau­rant; WOW-Women On­ly Work­out; and Paul Mows­er.

• For reg­is­tra­tion de­tails con­tact Priya Gomes, Team Hope Co­or­di­na­tor and TTO­TA Lia­sion (723-7370) or teamhope.tt@gmail.com, Keisha Lind­say, Team Hope Sports Li­ai­son (724-5583) or Lysca Wel­come-Tenia, SLAAT Li­ai­son (333-7433)

• For more in­for­ma­tion on Team Hope 2013 vis­it Team HOPE on Face­book.

• For in­for­ma­tion on TTO­TA and oc­cu­pa­tion­al ther­a­py, vis­it Trinidad and To­ba­go Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Ther­a­py As­so­ci­a­tion on Face­book or e-mail tto­ta.in­fo@gmail.com. For in­for­ma­tion on SLAATT, vis­it Speech and Lan­guage As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go on Face­book or e-mail spee­chas­so­ci­a­tiontt@gmail.com.