Ear­ly one Sun­day morn­ing in 2009, nine-year-old Rochelle Per­sad along with her moth­er Joan, brought box­es of cup­cakes to their church, the New Tes­ta­ment Church of God, in Oropouche.

With some help from her moth­er, Per­sad had baked the cup­cakes and she sold them to mem­bers of the con­gre­ga­tion.

With­out know­ing, it was her first busi­ness ven­ture.

Many chil­dren fall in love with cook­ing at an ear­ly age.

It is the same with Per­sad, on­ly she has Down Syn­drome.

World Down Syn­drome Day (WDSD) is be­ing marked to­day across the world and is a glob­al aware­ness day which has been of­fi­cial­ly ob­served by the Unit­ed Na­tions since 2012.

Per­sad used that pas­sion for bak­ing and cook­ing to launch her busi­ness five years ago, Rochelle’s Sweet Treats, while cre­at­ing a Face­book page that has over 1,000 fol­low­ers as well as a YouTube page.

Along with her moth­er, the now 14-year-old has nur­tured and grown her bak­ing busi­ness.

To­geth­er, they bake cakes and sell by or­ders.

While sell­ing at their church is fre­quent, they have had a rise in or­ders for spe­cial oc­ca­sions such as birth­days, Valen­tine’s Day and oth­er mem­o­rable mo­ments.

In an in­ter­view with the Busi­ness Guardian, Per­sad re­called her pas­sion for bak­ing and cook­ing.

“I start­ed cook­ing with my moth­er in the kitchen when I was nine-years-old. I was ex­cit­ed about bak­ing. I loved to bake be­cause that’s my hob­by. I want­ed to make it in­to a busi­ness and sell things. My moth­er is the one al­ways as­sist­ing me in the kitchen at home,” she said.

Re­al­ly, it is the oth­er way around…Per­sad as­sists her moth­er.

When Joan re­alised her daugh­ter was tak­ing to­wards cook­ing, she signed her up for a chil­dren’s bak­ing class the Fish­ing Pond Vil­lage Coun­cil was at that time host­ing in San­gre Grande.

“When she was fin­ished with the class, she start­ed to cry that she want­ed to bake and to ice even more cakes but I couldn’t af­ford it, so I made the ic­ing sug­ar, saved it in the fridge and we would prac­tice on tea cups,” Joan re­called.

Lisa Ghany, who is an Hon­orary Board Mem­ber at the Down Syn­drome Fam­i­ly Net­work (DSFN) and al­so Per­sad’s men­tor, ac­cel­er­at­ed her en­tre­pre­neur­ship ca­reer.

Ghany took Per­sad out of her moth­er’s kitchen and in­to restau­rant kitchens across the coun­try.

She first took her to the kitchen at the Hy­att Re­gency ho­tel where she did cake dec­o­rat­ing.

Per­sad then went to Fa­nat­ic Kitchen Stu­dio in Port-of-Spain, do­ing pan­cakes and eggs.

When Xtra Foods caught on to the work she was do­ing, the com­pa­ny de­cid­ed to sup­port Per­sad by sup­ply­ing her with in­gre­di­ents each year to help with her cup­cakes.

Ghany would take it fur­ther, help­ing Per­sad sell her cup­cakes to Di­anne Tea Shop at Long Cir­cu­lar and Adam’s Bagels in San­ta Cruz.

“My love for cook­ing de­vel­oped with my moth­er in the kitchen when I was younger,” Per­sad said.

Her moth­er al­so took her daugh­ter be­yond bak­ing.

Joan said she taught her how to cook dhalpourie roti and fry aloo pies.

“She is my kitchen as­sis­tant,” Joan laughed.

Ghany has praised the in­flu­ence of Joan on her daugh­ter, warn­ing that for Down Syn­drome chil­dren, par­ents can be crit­i­cal.

She said, “I think Rochelle is a young la­dy who has a lot of po­ten­tial and comes from a fam­i­ly that is very com­mit­ted to mak­ing sure that she is in­volved in every­thing like a typ­i­cal child. They have not treat­ed Rochelle or la­belled her Down Syn­drome or made that a prob­lem with her life. When Rochelle was two years old, her moth­er was one of the first peo­ple to ar­rive at the Hy­att to hear what we had to say. She was look­ing for so­lu­tions and op­por­tu­ni­ties to help her child.”

Per­sad’s rise in the kitchen has been a tes­ta­ment to the abil­i­ty of those with Down Syn­drome.

In 2022, mem­ber for Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la Dr Rai Rag­bir award­ed her an en­tre­pre­neur­ship award on In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Day recog­nis­ing her busi­ness’ out­stand­ing ad­vance­ment.

That same year, Per­sad was nom­i­nat­ed among the top three of the Min­istry of Youth De­vel­op­ment and Na­tion­al Ser­vice’s Youth En­tre­pre­neur Awards.

Yes­ter­day, she had the ho­n­our of in­tro­duc­ing Sharon Clark-Row­ley at the DSFN’s con­fer­ence at the Hy­att.

As Per­sad grew with her busi­ness, she al­so be­came an ad­vo­cate for the Down Syn­drome com­mu­ni­ty, de­liv­er­ing speech­es at the Hy­att and in To­ba­go.

Joan not­ed there is a les­son in Per­sad’s suc­cess that oth­er par­ents fac­ing the same chal­lenge must learn.

“I in­clude her as much as pos­si­ble. Any op­por­tu­ni­ty I get for her, I would al­ways in­clude her. I have nev­er lim­it­ed her in what she could do. They told me she couldn’t do cer­tain things but I still in­clud­ed her,” she added.

She said par­ents have a ten­den­cy to hide away their Down Syn­drome chil­dren but they should not.

Re­gard­ing Per­sad’s culi­nary skills, Joan jokes that her daugh­ter can now pipe 100 cup­cakes in two hours.

She went fur­ther in ex­plain­ing, “Ear­ly in­ter­ven­tion is one of the main things. Get them in­volved. Down Syn­drome chil­dren have po­ten­tial but what if you don’t know?”

It’s a point Ghany re­in­forced.

She told the Busi­ness Guardian, “Like every­thing else, we can­not ex­pect some­one to em­ploy a per­son who has not been ed­u­cat­ed and who does not have ba­sic skills. The thrust is to make sure peo­ple with Down Syn­drome and oth­er dis­abil­i­ties are ed­u­cat­ed, are func­tion­al­ly lit­er­ate and are able to com­mu­ni­cate and ex­press them­selves.”

Per­sad will be sit­ting the Sec­ondary En­trance Ex­am­i­na­tion (SEA) to­day along with thou­sands of oth­er Stan­dard Five pupils across the coun­try.

Be­yond her bak­ing en­deav­ours, the Fish­ing Pond Pres­by­ter­ian Pri­ma­ry School stu­dent would like to pur­sue a ca­reer in nurs­ing.

Her moth­er backs that up, say­ing she has al­ways been pas­sion­ate about help­ing peo­ple.

“Be­sides her bak­ing, she has al­ways seen her­self be­ing a nurse but she has a lot of chal­lenges but one of her dreams is to care for peo­ple,” Joan added.

For this young bak­er whose busi­ness is be­gin­ning to flour­ish, Per­sad con­tin­ues to learn how to lead while be­ing Down Syn­drome.

Her mes­sage on this day for the coun­try is sim­ple, “I want to be in­clud­ed in so­ci­ety and feel a sense of be­long­ing.”