Christy De Souza and Kel­lie Sim­mons both work in this coun­try’s bank­ing sec­tor.

Since Jan­u­ary, De Souza, 31, has been em­ployed in Re­pub­lic Bank Ltd’s hu­man re­sources de­part­ment, while Sim­mons, 29, has been work­ing as a bank­ing concierge with Sco­tia­bank T&T since 2020.

De Souza had pre­vi­ous­ly worked in the pub­lic ser­vice at the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter be­fore tran­si­tion­ing to the pri­vate sec­tor. Sim­mons, on the oth­er hand, pre­vi­ous­ly in­terned at the Cen­tral Bank of T&T.

Both De Souza’s and Sim­mons’ sto­ries may sound com­mon enough.

But they are not.

The women are Down Syn­drome self-ad­vo­cates.

And were able to en­ter the world of work through the Down Syn­drome Fam­i­ly Net­work’s men­tor­ship pro­gramme.

But Karen Tom Yew-Jar­dine, the gen­er­al man­ag­er of Group Mar­ket­ing and Com­mu­ni­ca­tion at Re­pub­lic Bank, wants you to know that the bank’s de­ci­sion to hire De Souza was not meant to be trendy.

Tom Yew-Jar­dine said the bank has been part­ner­ing with the Down Syn­drome Fam­i­ly Net­work over the past decade as part of the Re­pub­lic’s Pow­er to Make a Dif­fer­ence pro­gramme.

“The in­ter­ac­tion with Christy has re­al­ly been so ben­e­fi­cial and a learn­ing ex­pe­ri­ence for us all,” Tom Yew-Jar­dine said.

She said when you work with some­one on a dai­ly ba­sis you get to learn about them and the chal­lenges they may face.

“Christy teach­es some of the old­er staff, who may not be as tech­no­log­i­cal­ly savvy, about com­put­er short­cuts. She is al­so the res­i­dent dee­jay in HR be­cause she loves mu­sic so she would bring her speak­er and play her mu­sic dur­ing the day. And of course, it is an av­enue to al­low the HR team, who have the priv­i­lege and op­por­tu­ni­ty of in­ter­act­ing with her, to get to know one on one how peo­ple who have dif­fer­ent abil­i­ties are in a re­al gen­uine, non-con­trived set­ting, which is im­por­tant,” she said.

Tom Yew-Jar­dine said “Re­spect for the In­di­vid­ual” is one of the bank’s five core val­ues.

“Re­spect for the In­di­vid­ual is re­al­ly at the core of in­clu­siv­i­ty,” she said.

“All the re­search shows that hav­ing as wide and di­verse a tal­ent pool, in the long run, re­dounds to the ben­e­fit of the or­gan­i­sa­tion,” she said.

Sco­tia­bank, where Sim­mons works, said its most im­por­tant in­vest­ment is the one it makes in its peo­ple.

“As such, we strive to cre­ate an in­clu­sive cul­ture where every em­ploy­ee is em­pow­ered to reach their fullest po­ten­tial, re­spect­ed for who they are, and their dif­fer­ences and sim­i­lar­i­ties are em­braced. We un­lock our em­ploy­ees’ po­ten­tial through bias-free prac­tices and one set of in­clu­sive val­ues across the Bank,” it stat­ed.

Sco­tia­bank said its present em­ploy­ee base has peo­ple of all abil­i­ties.

“The in­clu­sion of peo­ple with vis­i­ble and non-vis­i­ble dis­abil­i­ties re­mains a pri­or­i­ty for the long-term suc­cess of our bank. In­clu­sion of di­verse peo­ple and per­spec­tives al­lows unique­ness and we be­lieve that dif­fer­ences should be cel­e­brat­ed,” Sco­tia­bank stat­ed.

“We seek to de­vel­op an in­clu­sive work­place by re­cruit­ing, de­vel­op­ing, and ad­vanc­ing peo­ple of all abil­i­ties and pro­mote an en­vi­ron­ment where every em­ploy­ee has ac­cess to work­place re­sources and ac­com­mo­da­tions to reach their fullest po­ten­tial,” said the bank.

Sco­tia­bank said in its most re­cent em­ploy­ee feed­back, 93 per cent of its em­ploy­ees be­lieve that the Bank is build­ing and sup­port­ing an in­clu­sive work­force.

Tues­day (March 21) is World Down Syn­drome Day (WDSD), which sig­ni­fies the unique­ness of three copies of the 21st chro­mo­some that caus­es Down Syn­drome

This year, the theme for WDSD is “With Us, Not For Us,” and en­cour­ages com­mu­ni­ties to move from the out­dat­ed char­i­ty mod­el in which peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties were treat­ed as ob­jects of char­i­ty, de­serv­ing of pity and re­ly­ing on oth­ers for sup­port.

Lisa Ghany of the Down Syn­drome Net­work said the day is a plat­form to talk about the chal­lenges that peo­ple face and al­so to re­mind the Gov­ern­ment and the peo­ple of T&T that there is a great deal of work still to be done to make sure that there is equal­i­ty and in­clu­siv­i­ty for peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties in our coun­try.

Men­tor­ship pro­gramme

Ghany said when the Down Syn­drome Fam­i­ly Net­work scanned the lo­cal en­vi­ron­ment, it re­alised that many peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties were not em­ployed. This was due to sev­er­al rea­sons in­clud­ing de­fi­cien­cies in ed­u­ca­tion.

“What we al­ways say is that if you are not ed­u­cat­ed you can­not be in­te­grat­ed. We have a lot of jobs va­cant but em­ploy­ers would tell you that they are just not em­ploy­able be­cause they do not have the right skills to fit the jobs that are avail­able,” Ghany said

That is where the men­tor­ship pro­gramme came in­to play, she said.

“Be­cause we were able to iden­ti­fy per­sons in our net­work who could be em­ployed, who were young adults, who had gone through some lev­el of school­ing and were now ready to go out in­to the work­place so that is how the men­tor­ship pro­gramme start­ed and we ap­proached cor­po­rate T&T and al­so the gov­ern­ment,” she said.

Ghany said the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter was the first min­istry to come on board when they em­ployed De Souza who worked in the Min­istry of Gen­der and Child Af­fairs.

“And she did very well there and was very in­clud­ed and she had her po­si­tion there. She be­came an on-the-job trainee and al­so went through that pro­gramme,” Ghany said.

Ghany said so far in the men­tor­ship pro­gramme they would have had about six self-ad­vo­cates who are now in em­ploy­ment.

“I think we’ve touched the tip of the ice­berg,” Ghany said.

Ghany said the Down Syn­drome Fam­i­ly Net­work has been bring­ing aware­ness to the sit­u­a­tion in T&T.

“Through the Lots of Socks cam­paign and the Bud­dy Walk we have been able to re­al­ly get the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty on board with recog­nis­ing Down Syn­drome and un­der­stand­ing a lot about what it is and what per­sons can do. It has brought a lot of fam­i­lies out of their shells,” she said.

“It brought them out and it got them to be par­tic­i­pat­ing, tak­ing their chil­dren out, go­ing to the movies, go­ing any­where, it has giv­en them that courage to bring their chil­dren out and not be afraid of be­ing bul­lied or laughed at,” Ghany said.

Ghany said peo­ple have been com­ing for­ward will­ing to take a per­son on board.

“But at the end of the day, it comes back to who do we send be­cause you can­not send a child who does not have the com­pe­ten­cies be­cause we want them to work and per­form the du­ties that they are as­signed and not fail, we do not want them to fail. You know you can make mis­takes, every­body, we all make mis­takes when we go to do a job the first time. But at the end of the day they have got to be at least func­tion­al­ly lit­er­ate and be able to com­mu­ni­cate so they can be un­der­stood in the work­place,” Ghany said.

“In those ar­eas we still have a lot of work to do with the par­ents and with the school to get them on board and that brings us to the ma­jor part of the Down Syn­drome work has been in the area of ad­vo­ca­cy,” she said.

Ghany said the or­gan­i­sa­tion has lob­bied con­tin­u­ous­ly with the gov­ern­ment through the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion, the Min­istry of so­cial de­vel­op­ment and the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter-Gen­der and Child Af­fairs to have leg­is­la­tion passed be­cause we al­ready have a pol­i­cy on dis­abil­i­ty.

“T&T has a dis­abil­i­ty pol­i­cy and we have not yet tak­en it to the next step to leg­is­la­tion. And that is what we re­al­ly need be­cause, with­out leg­is­la­tion, it is still at the dis­cre­tion of the em­ploy­er or at the dis­cre­tion of the school to say yes I am go­ing to take your child,” Ghany said.