Ker­win Thomas

On De­cem­ber 3 each year, the world cel­e­brates In­ter­na­tion­al Day of Per­sons with Dis­abil­i­ties. This day was pro­claimed in 1992 by Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly Res­o­lu­tion 47/3.

This day aims to pro­mote a more com­pre­hen­sive un­der­stand­ing of dis­abil­i­ty is­sues and mo­bilise sup­port for the dig­ni­ty, rights and well-be­ing of peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties.

The Unit­ed Na­tions' de­f­i­n­i­tion of dis­abil­i­ty is any per­son with a long-term phys­i­cal, men­tal, in­tel­lec­tu­al or sen­so­ry im­pair­ment that hin­ders their ac­tive par­tic­i­pa­tion in so­ci­ety on an equal ba­sis with oth­ers.

Ac­cord­ing to the World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion's (WHO) re­port on dis­abil­i­ty 2011, ap­prox­i­mate­ly 15 per cent of the world has some form of dis­abil­i­ty, which equates to about 1 bil­lion peo­ple.

Trinidad and To­ba­go's Cen­tral Sta­tis­ti­cal Of­fice (CSO) re­port­ed in 2014 that peo­ple liv­ing with dis­abil­i­ties make up about five per cent of the pop­u­la­tion, ap­prox­i­mate­ly 54,000 peo­ple. How­ev­er, that fig­ure may be high­er in 2022.

As we com­mem­o­rate the In­ter­na­tion­al Day of Per­sons liv­ing with Dis­abil­i­ties, in keep­ing with this year's theme, "Trans­for­ma­tive so­lu­tions for In­clu­sive de­vel­op­ment; The role of in­no­va­tion in fu­elling an ac­ces­si­ble and eq­ui­table world", it is es­sen­tial for Gov­ern­ments, the pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tors to col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly find in­no­v­a­tive so­lu­tions for and with peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties to make our coun­try and the world a more ac­ces­si­ble and eq­ui­table place.

The in­clu­sion of peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties is cru­cial to en­sur­ing hu­man rights, sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment, peace and se­cu­ri­ty.

It is cen­tral to the promise of the 2030 Agen­da for Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment to "Leave no one Be­hind."

Trinidad and To­ba­go rat­i­fied the Unit­ed Na­tions Con­ven­tion on the Rights of Per­sons with Dis­abil­i­ties (UN­CR­PD) on Ju­ly 25, 2015.

It was be­lieved that this UN­CR­PD would bring about a par­a­digm shift by en­cour­ag­ing pol­i­cy and pro­gramme in­ter­ven­tions among all stake­hold­ers to en­sure em­pha­sis is placed on the need for in­clu­sion and di­ver­si­ty in dis­abil­i­ty mat­ters.

It is about time we re­move all the bar­ri­ers placed on peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties and pro­mote in­clu­sion and equal­i­ty for all.

For far too long mem­bers of our com­mu­ni­ty have been plagued by in­ef­fi­cien­cy.

We need:

1. A trans­porta­tion sys­tem that of­fers ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty and in­creased mo­bil­i­ty, that en­ables them to trav­el eas­i­ly.

2. Op­por­tu­ni­ties for sus­tain­able em­ploy­ment and ac­ces­si­ble in­clu­sive ed­u­ca­tion.

3. Af­ford­able and ac­ces­si­ble hous­ing. Poli­cies for ac­quir­ing homes in each hous­ing project de­vel­oped by the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion.

4. A more ro­bust and sys­tem­at­ic so­cial sup­port ser­vice that ad­dress­es the in­di­vid­ual needs of each client (PWD) on a case-by-case ba­sis.

5. Im­prov­ing over­all ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty to pub­lic and pri­vate in­sti­tu­tions; park­ing, ramps, rails, sig­nage, el­e­va­tors, ac­ces­si­ble wash­rooms etc.

It is time for peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties to be treat­ed with dig­ni­ty and re­spect. Not to be stereo­typed as sec­ond-class cit­i­zens, a bur­den to the State, un­able to con­tribute pos­i­tive­ly to our coun­try.

I en­cour­age the mem­bers of the dif­fer­ent­ly-abled com­mu­ni­ty to work to­geth­er as we seek to fos­ter and cre­ate mean­ing­ful ways for trans­for­ma­tion and in­clu­sion.

We will con­tin­ue to ad­vo­cate for and col­lab­o­rate with all stake­hold­ers to lead the way to a more ac­ces­si­ble and eq­ui­table so­ci­ety.

The cor­ner­stone of this co­op­er­a­tion is the ac­tive par­tic­i­pa­tion of peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties in their full di­ver­si­ty and in­clu­sion in all de­ci­sion-mak­ing process­es that af­fect us.

Ker­win Thomas is the chair­man, Trinidad & To­ba­go Chap­ter of Dis­abled Peo­ples' In­ter­na­tion­al.