Carisa Lee

Re­porter

carisa.lee@cnc3.co.tt

Civ­il so­ci­ety groups and non-gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­i­sa­tions (NGOs) are ready for the Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar-led gov­ern­ment to start ful­fill­ing their cam­paign promis­es.

Two weeks be­fore Mon­day’s Gen­er­al Elec­tion, the Dif­fer­ent­ly Abled Move­ment protest­ed out­side the Red House in Port-of-Spain, call­ing for a meet­ing with then-prime min­is­ter Stu­art Young to dis­cuss an in­crease in the dis­abil­i­ty grant from $2,000 to $3,500.

While they did not get to meet with Young, the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) in­vit­ed the group to a town hall meet­ing in Tu­na­puna.

With the change in gov­ern­ment, the group is now wast­ing no time in ask­ing for what they need.

Vice pres­i­dent of the group, Or­nel­la Sam­my, yes­ter­day re­it­er­at­ed the call for an in­crease in the grant and bet­ter hous­ing and eas­i­er ac­cess to food cards.

“We, the Dif­fer­ent­ly Abled Move­ment, ex­pect to see a gov­ern­ment that views dis­abil­i­ty not as a bur­den but as part of hu­man di­ver­si­ty,” she said.

In ad­di­tion to these short-term fix­es, Sam­my called for im­ple­men­ta­tion of ex­ist­ing poli­cies, en­force­ment of the Equal Op­por­tu­ni­ty Act and ad­her­ence to in­ter­na­tion­al stan­dards.

“Trinidad and To­ba­go is a sig­na­to­ry to the UN Con­ven­tion on the Rights of Per­sons with Dis­abil­i­ties. The gov­ern­ment should align its na­tion­al poli­cies and prac­tices with the prin­ci­ples and ar­ti­cles of this con­ven­tion as it per­tains to the rights of per­sons with dis­abil­i­ties,” she said.

Mean­while, Blind Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer Ken­neth Sur­ratt wants Per­sad-Bisses­sar to fo­cus on vi­su­al­ly im­paired chil­dren who of­ten wait 24 months or more to be prop­er­ly di­ag­nosed.

“Chil­dren don’t have a wait­ing pe­ri­od be­cause there is a slim win­dow be­tween ze­ro and eight years for a child to be prop­er­ly as­sessed, and if re­me­di­al work can be done, for that child to have a bright fu­ture,” he said.

Sur­ratt al­so called for the pub­lic ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem to be more in­clu­sive for vi­su­al­ly im­paired stu­dents.

Al­so con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Autism Sib­lings and Friends Net­work (ASFN) pres­i­dent Maya Kir­ti, who was crowned the 2023 Com­mon­wealth Per­son of the Year, said she hopes to get an op­por­tu­ni­ty to work with the new gov­ern­ment.

“My work was ne­glect­ed by the for­mer min­is­ter of Youth De­vel­op­ment and Na­tion­al Ser­vice (Fos­ter Cum­mings) and he re­fused to meet with me. Even though he knew I was ready to serve, he still didn’t ac­cept that,” she said.

Kir­ti start­ed the NGO when she was 12 years old in ho­n­our of her broth­er, who is on the autism spec­trum.

In­ter­na­tion­al Women Re­source Net­work (IWRN) pres­i­dent San­drine Rat­tan mean­while called for the new gov­ern­ment to find a way to up­grade do­mes­tic vi­o­lence pro­tec­tion or­ders.

“We have been plead­ing with the last gov­ern­ment to deal with pro­tec­tion or­ders as in their cur­rent form they are null and void and do not pro­tect women,” she said.

Gen­er­al man­ag­er of the Coali­tion Against Do­mes­tic Vi­o­lence (CADV) Sab­ri­na Mowlah-Baksh is seek­ing sup­port for the NGO sec­tor, se­ri­ous ed­u­ca­tion re­form and thought­ful ev­i­dence-based poli­cies.

“We want thought­ful ev­i­dence-based poli­cies not cater­ing to the ma­jori­tar­i­an views that do not ad­dress the caus­es of so­cial prob­lems,” she said.

Sil­ver Lin­ing Foun­da­tion (SLF) ex­ec­u­tive Je­re­my Ed­wards al­so said yes­ter­day that elec­tion cam­paigns are, by na­ture, ad­ver­sar­i­al, but that na­tion-build­ing can­not be.

“The task be­fore us now is to trans­late bal­lots in­to bet­ter fu­tures class­room by class­room, com­mu­ni­ty by com­mu­ni­ty,” he said.

Ed­wards said the ev­i­dence from their Na­tion­al School Cli­mate Sur­vey shows that bul­ly­ing is per­va­sive and gen­dered.

In Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s first 100 days in of­fice, Ed­wards said the SLF is ready to brief her on their find­ings, des­ig­nate a li­ai­son and cham­pi­on a cross-par­ty chil­dren-first pledge.

Char­i­ta­ble or­gan­i­sa­tions Is There Not A Cause (ITNAC) and SE­WA In­ter­na­tion­al TT are al­so look­ing for­ward to more en­gage­ment with the new Prime Min­is­ter.

ITNAC head Avonelle Hec­tor-Joseph said the more civ­il so­ci­ety is in­volved on a high­er lev­el, the more change will be seen in the com­mu­ni­ties. SE­WA TT’s Re­van Teelucks­ingh called for a bet­ter re­la­tion­ship with the gov­ern­ment, not­ing their abil­i­ty to serve is of­ten curbed by reg­u­la­tions.