As the Gov­ern­ment pre­pares to present its first na­tion­al bud­get since tak­ing of­fice in April, ad­vo­cates are urg­ing the in­clu­sion of mea­sures to sup­port chil­dren with spe­cial needs, mi­grant chil­dren with­out le­gal sta­tus, and vul­ner­a­ble youth.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, founder of Sup­port Autism T&T, Dr Rad­i­ca Ma­hase, said she hopes the new bud­get will pri­ori­tise in­vest­ment in spe­cial needs ed­u­ca­tion.

“Every child de­serves an equal op­por­tu­ni­ty to learn and grow, and for stu­dents with spe­cial needs, this of­ten re­quires tai­lored sup­port,” she said. Ma­hase called for “more spe­cialised teach­ers, ac­ces­si­ble fa­cil­i­ties and re­sources” to help stu­dents reach their po­ten­tial, adding that such mea­sures should be viewed “not as an ex­pense but as an in­vest­ment in our fu­ture.” She said long-term ben­e­fits “will be pro­found for stu­dents, for fam­i­lies and for the na­tion.”

Maya Kir­ti Nanan, founder of the Autism Sib­lings and Friends Net­work, said she wants to see the bud­get re­flect “a stronger com­mit­ment to both per­sons with dis­abil­i­ties and young peo­ple.” She added that in­clu­sion must go be­yond dis­cus­sion and be backed by “tan­gi­ble in­vest­ment in in­clu­sive ed­u­ca­tion, ear­ly in­ter­ven­tion ser­vices, and ac­ces­si­ble sup­port for fam­i­lies.” Nanan al­so called for al­lo­ca­tions to “ex­pand di­ag­nos­tic and ther­a­py ser­vices, en­hance teacher train­ing and sup­port com­mu­ni­ty-based ini­tia­tives” that pro­vide safe spaces for chil­dren of all abil­i­ties.

With re­gard to mi­grant chil­dren, Ang­ie Ram­nar­ine, Co­or­di­na­tor of the La Ro­main Mi­grant Sup­port Group, urged pol­i­cy­mak­ers to recog­nise the rights of mi­grant chil­dren who lack le­gal sta­tus.

“These chil­dren are vic­tims of cir­cum­stance be­yond their con­trol,” she said. “I would like some sort of ac­knowl­edge­ment of their ex­is­tence in our so­ci­ety.” Ram­nar­ine added that the Gov­ern­ment must de­cide whether it is “pro­tect­ing them or not,” and called for mi­grant chil­dren to be seen “not through the lens­es of il­le­gal­i­ty, but as hu­man be­ings de­serv­ing of rights and dig­ni­ty.”

She said the bud­get must ad­dress in­equities af­fect­ing chil­dren and youth, not­ing that mean­ing­ful in­clu­sion re­quires re­sources, poli­cies, and con­tin­ued in­vest­ment pro­grammes.

On mi­grant chil­dren, Liv­ing Wa­ter Com­mu­ni­ty re­ports that about 4,000 Venezue­lan chil­dren, aged 5–17, were reg­is­tered as refugees or asy­lum seek­ers up to 2024. Of those, 1,462 were en­rolled un­der the UN­HCR’s Equal Place pro­gramme. The In­ter­na­tion­al Or­gan­i­sa­tion for Mi­gra­tion es­ti­mates over 2,000 mi­grant chil­dren un­der the age of ten are liv­ing in Trinidad and To­ba­go with­out full doc­u­men­ta­tion.