Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton#guardin.co.tt

The T&T As­so­ci­a­tion for the Hear­ing Im­paired (TTAHI) is seek­ing $10 mil­lion to re­pair its build­ing in Port-of-Spain.

Yes­ter­day, TTAHI signed a lease agree­ment with the Port Au­thor­i­ty to se­cure the prop­er­ty that will en­able the or­gan­i­sa­tion to ex­pand its ser­vices and reach more in­di­vid­u­als in the hear­ing-im­paired com­mu­ni­ty. How­ev­er, pres­i­dent Nicholas Cum­ber­batch said the roof of the as­so­ci­a­tion’s build­ing on Wright­son Road was dam­aged last year and is in ur­gent need of re­pairs

“We are now ap­peal­ing to the pub­lic and the pri­vate sec­tor for sup­port. We need $10 mil­lion to un­der­take crit­i­cal re­pairs, open the new school, and ac­com­plish every­thing we hope to do. In fact, we even need more au­di­ol­o­gists—we cur­rent­ly have on­ly two in Trinidad and To­ba­go,” he said

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the as­so­ci­a­tion plans to es­tab­lish a preschool for chil­dren with hear­ing im­pair­ments to pro­vide ear­ly learn­ing sup­port tai­lored to their unique needs.

“This preschool won’t be just for deaf chil­dren. Hear­ing chil­dren will al­so be part of the class­room. This ap­proach holds sig­nif­i­cant val­ue, as it al­lows deaf chil­dren to grow up along­side their hear­ing peers, fos­ter­ing a more nor­malised and in­clu­sive en­vi­ron­ment from an ear­ly age,” Cum­ber­batch said.
Es­tab­lished in 1989, TTAHI has been op­er­at­ing on land owned by the Port Au­thor­i­ty with­out a for­mal leas.

Cum­ber­batch ex­plained, “They were able to back­date the lease to 1989 and re-sign it as of to­day. Now, we can of­fi­cial­ly say we have a le­gal lease for this prop­er­ty, which is cru­cial.

“One key fo­cus will be our build­ing, which was con­struct­ed in 1989 to pro­vide clin­i­cal ser­vices through DRECHI—a de­part­ment with­in the Trinidad and To­ba­go As­so­ci­a­tion for the Hear­ing Im­paired.”

Per­sons in­ter­est­ed in sup­port­ing the cause can do­nate to TTAHI’s ARI­API­TA AV­ENUE, Port-of-Spain’s JMMB ac­count (007600018556).