Fay­ola K J Fras­er

What does it tru­ly mean to “In­spire In­clu­sion”? The In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Day theme for March 8, 2024, may seem rudi­men­ta­ry and gener­ic. But it is a clar­i­on call for the ac­tion need­ed to progress as a so­ci­ety, as there is no hope for true equal­i­ty with­out con­sid­er­ing that all women in so­ci­ety are valu­able.

In the eyes of many, be­cause there are women in con­tem­po­rary so­ci­ety who have as­sumed high-lev­el po­lit­i­cal po­si­tions, or women lead­ing cor­po­rate en­ti­ties or even women who have re­ceived in­ter­na­tion­al ac­claim for their work, equal­i­ty has been achieved. This no­tion, how­ev­er, fails to ac­knowl­edge that there are still many bar­ri­ers to true in­clu­sion in our coun­try, as var­i­ous types of women have been left out of the nar­ra­tive.

For dis­abil­i­ty ad­vo­cate and the­atre arts ed­u­ca­tor Myana In­niss, who has ex­pe­ri­enced life on both sides of the abil­i­ty spec­trum, as a na­tion, we still have leaps and bounds to go when it comes to in­spir­ing in­clu­sion of all women.

With the vi­brance and dy­namism of any 30-year-old woman, In­niss re­fus­es to be de­fined or have her ca­pa­bil­i­ties bound by a wheel­chair. From the be­gin­ning of her tenure at Bish­op Anstey High School East, she found a love for the­atre arts, and went on to pur­sue it at UWI. Re­mem­ber­ing all the sac­ri­fices her moth­er made for her, as a sin­gle par­ent, her sole dream at UWI was to cross the stage as a grad­u­ate in the blue gown and see her moth­er beam with pride. She al­so dreamt of hav­ing a fam­i­ly, and be­ing a moth­er to her own chil­dren.

On April 22, 2018, at 24 years old, mere­ly two ex­ams shy of com­plet­ing her The­atre Arts de­gree at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, her life was for­ev­er changed. In­niss was in a car ac­ci­dent, where the dri­ver lost con­trol of the ve­hi­cle, it flipped and her spine was crushed, leav­ing her paral­ysed from the waist down. “I went in­to a re­al­ly dark place,” In­niss says, re­mem­ber­ing that the oth­er oc­cu­pants of the ve­hi­cle sus­tained on­ly mi­nor in­juries. “I used to scream and cry, and be­lieve that every­thing I ever want­ed was now crushed.” Af­ter the ac­ci­dent, In­niss felt hope­less that all her dreams would now nev­er be re­alised.

Fol­low­ing her treat­ment and re­lease from the hos­pi­tal, In­niss was wheel­chair-bound and al­so suf­fered from in­con­ti­nence as a re­sult of the ac­ci­dent, mean­ing that she had to utilise a catheter. She took a year off from UWI to rest and re­cov­er, and then recom­menced her stud­ies, de­ter­mined that she would grad­u­ate de­spite her set­back. Re­mem­ber­ing her hes­i­ta­tion to go back to UWI, she says, “Every­one knew me walk­ing and danc­ing around in UWI, now they would see me in a wheel­chair.” She felt it would be em­bar­rass­ing. She was al­so used to trav­el­ling in­de­pen­dent­ly back and forth, but now had to hire a dri­ver to take her to cam­pus, which was very cost­ly. As fate would have it, she re­turned to UWI for on­ly one day, be­fore the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic moved all her class­es on­line. With a re­newed sense of de­ter­mi­na­tion, dri­ve and fo­cus, she com­plet­ed her stud­ies and grad­u­at­ed from UWI in 2020.

Ex­pe­ri­enc­ing life in a com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent way was a new chap­ter for In­niss. Her ma­ter­nal yearn­ing was marred with the fear that she would nev­er have a child. Even­tu­al­ly, she be­came preg­nant in 2021, but doc­tors at the hos­pi­tal tried to rip her of the choice that many able-bod­ied women are giv­en. “The sad part of my preg­nan­cy was that the doc­tors tried to force me to do a c-sec­tion as soon as they saw I was in a wheel­chair,” she re­mem­bers, which she re­sist­ed, as she want­ed a nat­ur­al birth and no fur­ther in­ter­ven­tion in­to her body un­less ab­solute­ly nec­es­sary. Every time she went to the clin­ic, they sent peo­ple to con­vince her to have a c-sec­tion, but In­niss re­sist­ed, do­ing her own re­search and con­sult­ing with her pri­vate doc­tor, con­fi­dent­ly as­sured she could have a nat­ur­al birth. When her son was born nat­u­ral­ly, it was a per­son­al tri­umph for her, and a tes­ta­ment to her de­ter­mi­na­tion to not be ex­clud­ed or mar­gin­alised from the fe­male ex­pe­ri­ence be­cause of be­ing on a wheel­chair.

Long way to­wards full in­clu­sion of peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties in T&T

Now a the­atre arts teacher’s aide at a sec­ondary school, In­niss feels clos­er to re­al­is­ing her dream of be­ing a the­atre arts teacher. She al­so op­er­ates a small busi­ness from her home, do­ing nails, lash­es and hair for women, be­cause as a sin­gle par­ent she has to pro­vide for her son. She has joined the Trinidad and To­ba­go Chap­ter of Dis­abled Peo­ples’ In­ter­na­tion­al (TT/DPI) which serves to spread aware­ness and pro­tect the rights of dis­abled peo­ple in the coun­try.

In­niss’ work with the DPI as the as­sis­tant sec­re­tary has giv­en her unique in­sight in­to how the coun­try needs to ad­vance in in­spir­ing in­clu­sion for peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties. The DPI us­es their sub­ven­tion to have events and gath­er­ings for peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties to show­case their tal­ents in bak­ing, craft­ing which pro­vides an op­por­tu­ni­ty for them to sell their items. The DPI al­so works on projects to make T&T more ac­ces­si­ble for all and they cre­ate aware­ness and com­mu­ni­ty events for peo­ple to share their sto­ries.

In­niss wants peo­ple to know that there is a long way to go to­wards full in­clu­sion of peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties. “Some­thing as sim­ple as go­ing to the beach,” she says, “there is on­ly one beach wheel­chair in To­ba­go at Pi­geon Point,” so peo­ple in wheel­chairs are not able to en­joy the same sim­ple plea­sures as oth­ers. There is al­so dis­crim­i­na­tion against peo­ple with wheel­chairs, for ex­am­ple, as when she calls a taxi, they of­ten can­cel the ride or re­quest ex­tra mon­ey if she wants to put her wheel­chair in the trunk.

“I can’t en­joy the plea­sures I used to,” she says, “like walk­ing down to Va­len­cia junc­tion and buy­ing an ice cream on a bad day.” The un­even and poor­ly pitched roads along with the lack of side­walks are an ad­di­tion­al hin­drance to her be­ing able to wheel down the road. There are still many able-bod­ied peo­ple who park in spots for peo­ple with a hand­i­cap, pre­vent­ing her from eas­i­ly ac­cess­ing the gro­cery store or malls, and in­sti­tu­tions that have no ramps for wheel­chair ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty.

She be­lieves strong­ly in aware­ness rais­ing at a na­tion­al lev­el, as there re­main many ob­sta­cles to peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties liv­ing a full life that peo­ple on­ly know if they them­selves have a dis­abil­i­ty or a per­son close to them has one.

Not want­i­ng or seek­ing pity, In­niss lives her life to the fullest and is de­ter­mined to break bar­ri­ers, do­ing every­thing that peo­ple ex­pect she can­not do. “I want to live in a way that oth­ers are in­spired,” she says, “to en­cour­age oth­er peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties to go out and en­joy life.”

She still en­joys go­ing to fetes, go­ing to Panora­ma, re­cent­ly trav­elled to Cu­ra­cao and Pana­ma for her birth­day trip and went to Caribbean Cin­e­mas 8 for the first time. She us­es her so­cial me­dia plat­forms to let oth­er peo­ple know they too can do all these things re­gard­less of phys­i­cal lim­i­ta­tions. As an ad­vo­cate, she has formed a group called Spinal Cord In­jury Life in T&T on Face­book, which is slow­ly grow­ing, for peo­ple to share their sto­ries and con­nect. In­spir­ing in­clu­sion is not just a once a year thing for Myana In­niss on In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Day, but it is her dai­ly strength, her re­fusal to be ex­clud­ed and to ac­cept any­thing less than what she de­serves that cre­ates space for all women to be re­spect­ed and af­ford­ed op­por­tu­ni­ties re­gard­less of their abil­i­ty.