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Friday, May 9, 2025

Differently Abled Movement calls for increase in disablilty grant

by

Carisa Lee
22 days ago
20250417
President of the Differently Abled Movement Nekeisha Pierre, second from left, and other members protest outside the Red House, Port-of-Spain, yesterday.

President of the Differently Abled Movement Nekeisha Pierre, second from left, and other members protest outside the Red House, Port-of-Spain, yesterday.

VASHTI SINGH

Carisa Lee

Re­porter

carisa.lee@cnc3.co.tt

Mem­bers of the Dif­fer­ent­ly Abled Move­ment are re­quest­ing a meet­ing with Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young and Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar be­fore the April 28 Gen­er­al Elec­tion to dis­cuss the need for in­creas­ing the dis­abil­i­ty grant, which cur­rent­ly stands at $2,000.

Speak­ing out­side the Red House on Aber­crom­by Street, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day, pres­i­dent of the move­ment, Nekeisha Pierre, said, “We want to know what will the next sit­ting gov­ern­ment do for dif­fer­ent­ly abled per­sons in Trinidad and To­ba­go. We did not come to beg, but what we are here do­ing is what we know we tru­ly de­serve; we want to say that $2,000 can­not suf­fice dif­fer­ent­ly abled per­sons in Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

Pierre said the cost of liv­ing af­fect­ed the dif­fer­ent­ly abled even more se­vere­ly.

“We are al­ready lim­it­ed by our dis­abil­i­ties and what­ev­er in­se­cu­ri­ties and what­ev­er we en­counter every day, but yet still we are forced to sur­vive with $2,000. Two thou­sand dol­lars bare­ly makes the first five days of the month,” she said.

“Two thou­sand dol­lars grant, just can’t ...!”

The group chant­ed as they high­light­ed the mag­ni­tude of their month­ly ex­pens­es, which they be­lieve can be most­ly cov­ered if the grant is in­creased to at least $3,500.

“They won’t give us $5,000,” mem­ber Pe­ter John­son said.

John­son said as elec­tion day neared, he had been tun­ing in to every po­lit­i­cal meet­ing, es­pe­cial­ly those by the two ma­jor par­ties, the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) and the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM), but had not heard any men­tion of their com­mu­ni­ty.

Founder of Blind­ness is Kind­ness, Kevin Ab­dul, said this was be­cause while they were vi­su­al­ly im­paired, they were not no­ticed by those who could see. He said even when par­lia­men­tar­i­ans and union­ists protest­ed for in­creas­es, the dif­fer­ent­ly abled were for­got­ten.

“So­ci­ety, they are not see­ing us. Even with unions, every­body clam­ours for wage ne­go­ti­a­tions and min­i­mum wage, but when you do the maths, even the dis­abil­i­ty at $2,000 a month is still be­low min­i­mum wage. The maths not math­s­ing ... no­body is fight­ing for us; we are for­got­ten peo­ple,” Ab­dul said.

Mar­lene Sama­roo said her vi­su­al­ly im­paired son, 43, was fac­ing a predica­ment. She said her son, who re­ceives the grant, re­cent­ly got a job at a li­brary. Sama­roo said they now had to choose be­tween the “sta­ble” grant and the job that gave her son some sort of pur­pose in life.

“He has to dress, trans­porta­tion, lunch. How can he make out? In­ter­net ... we went through re­al pres­sure to get that dis­abil­i­ty,” she said.

She said her son has a right to live as a hu­man be­ing, and $2,000 was not enough.

Vice pres­i­dent Or­nel­la Sam­my said se­ri­ous con­sid­er­a­tion need­ed to be giv­en to em­ploy­ment for the dis­abled. She said many of them got side hus­tles, like sell­ing wa­ter or nuts to sur­vive, but they were met with threats of los­ing their grant.

“The in­ad­e­qua­cy of the cur­rent grant of­ten forces per­sons with dis­abil­i­ties and their fam­i­lies in­to pover­ty,” Sam­my said.

In Jan­u­ary the group staged a sim­i­lar protest out­side the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion head of­fice in Port-of-Spain to high­light hous­ing woes.

Guardian Me­dia mes­saged Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young and Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to ask if they would con­sid­er meet­ing mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty but there was no re­sponse up to press time. Con­tact was al­so made with Min­is­ter of So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices Don­na Cox but she was at a func­tion at the time.


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