Dr RADICA MAHASE

Fifteen per cent of the total world population, that is, approximately 1 billion people, have a disability. Of this number, 80 per cent live in developing countries.

The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities notes that, “States Parties to the present Convention recognize the equal right of all persons with disabilities to live in the community, with choices equal to others, and shall take effective and appropriate measures to facilitate full enjoyment by persons with disabilities of this right and their full inclusion and participation in the community….”

The convention lists various ways in which inclusion can be facilitated, such as access to accommodation, personal mobility, education, employment and so on.

On September 27, 2007, Trinidad and Tobago became a signatory to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. By signing this treaty, TT therefore indicated its “intention to take steps to be bound by the treaty at a later date.” When TT ratified the treaty on June 25, 2015 it meant that we became legally bound to implement the terms of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Simply put, it means that TT is responsible for implementing policies and actions that would facilitate inclusion of people with disabilities in our country.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention define disability inclusion as “Including people with disabilities in everyday activities and encouraging them to have roles similar to their peers who do not have a disability.”

[caption id="attachment_911391" align="alignnone" width="683"] Inclusion means equal access to opportunities at all levels. -[/caption]

On one level it starts with legislation and the development of policies and action plans to ensure that people with disabilities have equal access to education, employment, accommodation, etc. And if these are effective, if inclusion is more than some grand idea on a piece of paper in a government’s office, then disability inclusion can take many faces in TT.

It can mean parents not having to beg or bribe a school principal to enrol their child in a public primary school. It means not having to pull strings to get your child accepted into a school.

It means having people with disabilities sharing a common workspace – not the token one or two people just to make it appear they also have access to employment opportunities. It means a wheelchair user having access to all buildings because owners and contractors are actually following building codes.

Inclusion means pulling up in the car part of a public mall and finding the wheelchair parking space actually being used by wheelchair users. It means that when someone wrongly parks in a wheelchair parking spot, they automatically feel guilty because they understand that that spot should be left empty for someone who actually needs the space to offload a wheelchair. It means businesses not using wheelchair parking spots for curbside pick-up. It means making wheelchair parking spots wide enoug