RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

The dis­abled com­mu­ni­ty is of­fer­ing their re­sound­ing sup­port to Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo for her re­cent call on the Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion to pri­ori­tise the pas­sage of leg­is­la­tion aimed at ad­dress­ing chal­lenges faced by dis­abled cit­i­zens.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, Ken­neth Sur­ratt, the ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer of the Blind Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion said there was an ur­gent need to have com­pre­hen­sive leg­is­la­tion to safe­guard the com­mu­ni­ty.

Say­ing dis­abled peo­ple are vul­ner­a­ble to crim­i­nals, Sur­ratt said it was cru­cial to pass prop­er leg­is­la­tion swift­ly to pro­vide as­sis­tance and pro­tec­tion to those liv­ing with dis­abil­i­ties.

“Crime is hit­ting hard at home with peo­ple who are blind. The Law As­so­ci­a­tion is look­ing at the draft leg­is­la­tion, and we hope the Gov­ern­ment and the Op­po­si­tion can get this done be­fore the 2025 elec­tion,” he said.

He al­so ex­pressed sup­port for Pres­i­dent Kan­ga­loo’s ad­di­tion­al call for the im­ple­men­ta­tion of a Na­tion­al Work-from-Home Pol­i­cy.

“Once that comes on board, we don’t have to wor­ry about trans­porta­tion or rea­son­able ac­com­mo­da­tion at work. Once we start work­ing from home, this will re­duce de­pen­den­cy on dis­abil­i­ty grants,” he ex­plained.

Sur­ratt al­so re­vealed that the draft leg­is­la­tion is not yet pub­licly avail­able. Urg­ing par­lia­men­tar­i­ans to heed Pres­i­dent Kan­ga­loo’s rec­om­men­da­tions and make the draft leg­is­la­tion wide­ly ac­ces­si­ble, Sur­ratt said, “We want the Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment to launch this draft leg­is­la­tion in a big way and let the whole coun­try be aware of it.”

As T&T’s pop­u­la­tion con­tin­ues to age, Sur­ratt said 15 to 20 per cent of cit­i­zens suf­fer some kind of dis­abil­i­ty.

This, he said, un­der­scores the press­ing need for leg­is­la­tion. 

“Such laws would of­fer crit­i­cal pro­tec­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly in do­mains like the con­struc­tion in­dus­try and ed­u­ca­tion­al op­por­tu­ni­ties,” he added.

He re­vealed that the As­so­ci­a­tion has start­ed en­gag­ing with stake­hold­ers in the ar­chi­tec­tur­al in­dus­try to pro­mote uni­ver­sal de­sign prin­ci­ples in con­struc­tion, en­sur­ing greater ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty for all.

Mean­while, Ri­car­do Ram­paul, Chief Op­er­at­ing Of­fi­cer of the Na­tion­al Cen­tre for Per­sons with Dis­abil­i­ties (NCPD), al­so ex­pressed ap­pre­ci­a­tion for Pres­i­dent Kan­ga­loo’s ad­vo­ca­cy. He voiced the hope that law­mak­ers would take heed and con­sult with or­gan­i­sa­tions and in­di­vid­u­als ded­i­cat­ed to ad­dress­ing the needs of peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties.

Ram­paul said key con­cerns raised with­in the dis­abled com­mu­ni­ty in­clude build­ing codes, in­fra­struc­tur­al ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty, work­place in­clu­sion, and equal ac­cess to ed­u­ca­tion. 

Prin­ci­pal of the Na­tion­al Cen­tre for Dis­abil­i­ties, Ka­haya Sook­lals­ingh-Puck­erin, em­pha­sised the need to erad­i­cate stig­ma and stereo­types as­so­ci­at­ed with dis­abil­i­ties.

“Some of us think it is taboo to have a dis­abil­i­ty. As a pop­u­la­tion, we have to learn how to adapt and treat every­one equal­ly,” she added.

Un­der­scor­ing the im­por­tance of pub­lic ed­u­ca­tion in dis­pelling myths and mis­con­cep­tions sur­round­ing dis­abil­i­ties, Puck­erin said while their or­gan­i­sa­tion was not di­rect­ly con­sult­ed, part­ner NGOs have ac­cess to the draft leg­is­la­tion and their com­ments would be shared with rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties.

Mean­while, Stephen Creese, chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer of NCPD, al­so ex­pressed op­ti­mism that the leg­is­la­tion would be passed dur­ing the first par­lia­men­tary ses­sion. 

“We would like to see reg­u­la­to­ry in­sti­tu­tions in the coun­try like Town and Coun­try take in­to con­sid­er­a­tion the needs of dis­abled per­sons in terms of how build­ing and de­vel­op­ment ap­provals are grant­ed,” Creese said.

He not­ed that one of the key prob­lems af­fect­ing the com­mu­ni­ty was ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty as well as peo­ple be­ing able to able to ac­cess work in the pri­vate and pub­lic sec­tors.