Matthew Chin

Re­porter

matthew.chin@guardian.co.tt

Pe­dro Christo­pher is not your or­di­nary Trinida­di­an boy. The 11 year old has been a friend of the stage since he was four years old, act­ing with Lil­liput Chil­dren’s The­atre in Wood­brook. Off-stage, how­ev­er, Pe­dro and his bud­dies en­joy frol­ick­ing in the out­doors, play­ing sports like bas­ket­ball, ten­nis, and foot­ball. He does all of his favourite things while hav­ing Down Syn­drome, al­so known as Tri­somy 21. His moth­er, Rho­da Christo­pher, de­scribed him not as dis­abled but as some­one who is “dif­fer­ent­ly-abled”, ca­pa­ble of do­ing the same ac­tiv­i­ties that any­one can do.

His fam­i­ly lives in Port-of-Spain where he at­tends the St Patrick’s New­town Boys’ RC School. He al­so has a younger broth­er named Ben­i­to Miguel.

Last year, Pe­dro and his fam­i­ly at­tend­ed a spe­cial walk around the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah with many oth­ers aimed at pro­mot­ing the ac­cep­tance and in­clu­sion of those liv­ing with Down Syn­drome.

Every year the Down Syn­drome Fam­i­ly Net­work (DSFN) of Trinidad and To­ba­go has an event called Bud­dy Walk, which was in­tro­duced by the Na­tion­al Down Syn­drome So­ci­ety of Amer­i­ca in 1995 to cel­e­brate Down Syn­drome Aware­ness Month which oc­curs every Oc­to­ber. This year’s 11th Bud­dy Walk took place last week Sun­day in Port-of-Spain.

Pe­dro de­scribed the Bud­dy Walk as “be­ing in heav­en” as he gets the op­por­tu­ni­ty to ex­pe­ri­ence the mu­sic of the Uni­ver­si­ty of the South­ern Caribbean’s march­ing band.

“I like be­ing in the band with my friends,” he said.

Al­though he has had many fun and ex­cit­ing ex­pe­ri­ences, Pe­dro has been forced to con­front bul­ly­ing for some­thing he can­not change.

“(Bul­ly­ing) makes me sad and an­gry,” he said.

But de­spite be­ing told hurt­ful words about him­self, Pe­dro wants peo­ple to know that noth­ing can stop him from do­ing what he wants to do.

“I can do every­thing and any­thing,” he said.

Lisa Ghany, who acts as the chair­per­son and ho­n­ourary board mem­ber of the DSFN, wants the pub­lic to look be­yond a per­son’s dis­abil­i­ty by chang­ing their lan­guage.

“We use a peo­ple-first lan­guage which looks at the per­son and not at the dis­abil­i­ty, re­gard­less of whether it’s Down Syn­drome or if you are hear­ing im­paired, etc. Pe­dro is Pe­dro. He is not the boy with Down Syn­drome. Let us look at the abil­i­ty in the per­son,” she said.

Re­gard­ing the pro­tec­tion of these peo­ple in Trinidad and To­ba­go, Ghany point­ed to par­ents and the law as the main start­ing points.

“It starts with par­ents and the im­me­di­ate com­mu­ni­ty. In Trinidad and To­ba­go, we do not have laws that pro­tect per­sons with dis­abil­i­ties. We are hop­ing, be­cause we’ve spent the last ten years ad­vo­cat­ing for these laws, and we are part of the con­ver­sa­tion, that with­in the next year or so we will see those laws come in­to fruition on our books. And there­fore our chil­dren will have the right to go to school. No one will be able to say, ‘Well, we can’t take Pe­dro be­cause he has a dis­abil­i­ty.’ The laws will pro­tect them,” she says.

Mean­while, de­spite Pe­dro’s brav­ery and will­ing­ness to par­tic­i­pate in ac­tiv­i­ties, his moth­er said she needs an aide who will as­sist him in his dai­ly ac­tiv­i­ties at school.

She says: “Some­one who is dif­fer­ent­ly abled, you have to help them to see where their strengths are be­cause every­one has theirs. Per­sons like Pe­dro need the ex­tra sup­port. It comes down to more than just eq­ui­ty but jus­tice. We need jus­tice for our per­sons with dis­abil­i­ties in the coun­try.”

Pe­dro’s fam­i­ly and friends ac­com­pa­nied him last Sun­day for the DSFN’s Bud­dy Walk which be­gan at Nel­son Man­dela Park. The wife of Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, Sharon Clark-Row­ley, was al­so present at the event, walk­ing along­side the Down Syn­drome com­mu­ni­ty.