The Trinidad and To­ba­go Blind Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion (TTB­WA) is call­ing on Gov­ern­ment to en­sure that all its re­sponse plans to the cur­rent COVID-19 cri­sis in the coun­try are in­clu­sive, and mind­ful of the needs of per­sons liv­ing with dis­abil­i­ties.

In an of­fi­cial state­ment is­sued to­day, the As­so­ci­a­tion's Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer, Ken­neth Suratt, makes a call for all in­for­ma­tion on COVID-19 to be pro­vid­ed in mul­ti­ple for­mats, en­sur­ing that per­sons liv­ing dis­abil­i­ties, es­pe­cial­ly vi­sion- and hear­ing-im­paired per­sons, can be prop­er­ly in­formed.

It al­so high­lights the vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty of per­sons with dis­abil­i­ties to acts of vi­o­lence and sex­u­al ex­ploita­tion, and urges the au­thor­i­ties to fac­tor them in, as they strength­en ca­pac­i­ty to deal with in­creas­es in gen­der-based vi­o­lence dur­ing this time.

The full text of the Blind Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion’s “Call for Ac­tion” fol­lows…

This Call for Ac­tion is pro­duced by The Trinidad and To­ba­go Blind Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion (TTB­WA), the na­tion­al or­gan­i­sa­tion rep­re­sent­ing the es­ti­mat­ed fif­teen thou­sand (15,000) per­sons who are blind and par­tial­ly sight­ed in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

The ac­tions are in line with rec­om­men­da­tions by the World Blind Union (WBU) and re­flect the ur­gent needs to re­duce the spread of COVID-19 and re­spons­es to the pan­dem­ic. The As­so­ci­a­tion recog­nis­es the di­ver­si­ty of needs among per­sons with dis­abil­i­ties, es­pe­cial­ly in times of crises, and urge the Gov­ern­ment and rel­e­vant stake­hold­ers to adopt in­clu­sive ap­proach­es to "leave no-one be­hind".

Par­tic­i­pa­tion and in­clu­sion

1. The As­so­ci­a­tion call on the gov­ern­ment to es­tab­lish Covid-19 Task Forces, in­clu­sive of all per­sons with dis­abil­i­ties in­clud­ing per­sons who are blind and par­tial­ly sight­ed and their rep­re­sen­ta­tive or­ga­ni­za­tions to mon­i­tor the evolv­ing needs of per­sons with dis­abil­i­ties and ad­vise on the im­ple­men­ta­tion of in­clu­sive re­sponse plans, pro­grams and strate­gies.

Ac­cess to in­for­ma­tion

2. The As­so­ci­a­tion call on the gov­ern­ment, lo­cal and na­tion­al agen­cies to pro­vide in­for­ma­tion re­lat­ed to Covid-19 in ac­ces­si­ble for­mats in­clud­ing large print, tac­tile for­mat, ac­ces­si­ble mul­ti­me­dia as well as writ­ten, au­dio, plain-lan­guage. In ad­di­tion, we urge all broad­cast­ing and mass me­dia net­works to en­sure that in­for­ma­tion and an­nounce­ments on Covid-19 are ac­ces­si­ble to all per­sons with dis­abil­i­ties in­clud­ing per­sons who are blind and par­tial­ly sight­ed.

3. The As­so­ci­a­tion re­quest that the gov­ern­ment, lo­cal and na­tion­al au­thor­i­ties to pro­vide toll free phone num­bers where per­sons who are blind and par­tial­ly sight­ed can ac­cess rel­e­vant pub­lic in­for­ma­tion and ap­pro­pri­ate emer­gency sup­port.

Vi­o­lence against blind and par­tial­ly sight­ed women and girls

4. Recog­nis­ing women and girls with dis­abil­i­ties are the most at risk of ex­ploita­tion, vi­o­lence and abuse due to the iso­la­tion and so­cial dis­tanc­ing re­quire­ments, we call on lo­cal and na­tion­al law en­force­ment agen­cies, hu­man rights or­ga­ni­za­tions and civ­il so­ci­eties work­ing in the area of gen­der- based vi­o­lence to put in place ap­pro­pri­ate mea­sures to pre­vent all forms of ex­ploita­tion, vi­o­lence and abuse to­wards women and girls with dis­abil­i­ties in­clud­ing ap­pro­pri­ate forms of gen­der- and age-sen­si­tive as­sis­tance and sup­port for women and girls who are blind and par­tial­ly sight­ed such as ac­cess to free hot­line phone num­bers and ser­vices.

5. The As­so­ci­a­tion calls on the gov­ern­ment, lo­cal and na­tion­al au­thor­i­ties to en­sure that ap­pro­pri­ate and ef­fec­tive mech­a­nisms are avail­able to iden­ti­fy and in­ter­vene to pre­vent in­stances of ex­ploita­tion, vi­o­lence and abuse against women and girls with dis­abil­i­ties in­clud­ing women and girls who are blind and par­tial­ly sight­ed.

6. The As­so­ci­a­tion re­quest that the gov­ern­ment should pro­vide rea­son­able ac­com­mo­da­tion and sup­port mea­sures for blind and par­tial­ly sight­ed women and girls who are deal­ing with dai­ly home chores in­clud­ing child­care, cook­ing, house keep­ing etc.

Emer­gency Re­sponse

7. The As­so­ci­a­tion calls on the gov­ern­ment to es­tab­lish in­clu­sive emer­gency re­sponse pro­grams that ad­dress the needs of all per­sons with dis­abil­i­ties, in­clud­ing the spe­cif­ic needs of per­sons who are blind and par­tial­ly sight­ed liv­ing in both ur­ban and rur­al ar­eas and those who are home­less.

8. The As­so­ci­a­tion urges the gov­ern­ment and emer­gency re­lief agen­cies to en­sure that emer­gency re­sponse pack­ages in­clud­ing fi­nan­cial aid pro­grams, reg­is­tra­tion process­es and ap­pli­ca­tion forms for emer­gency re­lief sup­port are ful­ly ac­ces­si­ble to per­sons who are blind and par­tial­ly sight­ed.

9. The As­so­ci­a­tion urges gov­ern­ment, lo­cal and na­tion­al au­thor­i­ties to pro­vide ad­di­tion­al fi­nan­cial sup­port to care­givers and fam­i­ly mem­bers who are as­sist­ing per­sons who are blind and par­tial­ly sight­ed.

10. The As­so­ci­a­tion calls on the gov­ern­ment to ex­empt per­sons who are blind and par­tial­ly sight­ed and their close fam­i­ly mem­bers from per­son­al in­come tax­es to be able to af­ford ba­sic needs.

11. The As­so­ci­a­tion calls on the gov­ern­ment to con­sid­er in­creas­ing dis­abil­i­ty fi­nan­cial ben­e­fits or any oth­er form of dis­abil­i­ty pen­sion re­lief dur­ing this pe­ri­od of the Covid-19 pan­dem­ic.

12. The As­so­ci­a­tion calls on the gov­ern­ment and re­lief agen­cies to en­sure that per­sons with dis­abil­i­ties in­clud­ing per­sons who are blind and par­tial­ly sight­ed will be giv­en high pri­or­i­ty in the event of evac­u­a­tion and dis­tri­b­u­tion of emer­gency re­lief sup­plies and ser­vices.

Gro­ceries and home sup­plies

13. The As­so­ci­a­tion urges all re­tail chains and con­sumer goods and sup­pli­ers, su­per­mar­kets, phar­ma­cies and oth­er es­sen­tial busi­ness­es to en­sure that on­line shop­ping ser­vices are ful­ly ac­ces­si­ble to blind and par­tial­ly sight­ed per­sons. The As­so­ci­a­tion al­so rec­om­mends that per­sons with dis­abil­i­ties must be giv­en pri­or­i­ty in fast shop­ping de­liv­er­ies. In cas­es where on­line shop­ping is not avail­able, we strong­ly rec­om­mend that busi­ness­es to ded­i­cate spe­cial hot­lines where per­sons with dis­abil­i­ties can call and or­der their prod­ucts.

14. The As­so­ci­a­tion urges busi­ness­es to en­sure spe­cial hours are pro­vid­ed for blind and par­tial­ly sight­ed shop­pers and per­sons with dis­abil­i­ties.

15.  For in per­son shop­ping places, we rec­om­mend that the per­sons as­sist­ing blind cus­tomers to re­spect so­cial dis­tance and pro­vide ver­bal in­struc­tions on how to nav­i­gate the shop­ping fa­cil­i­ties.

Ed­u­ca­tion

16. The As­so­ci­a­tion calls on all ed­u­ca­tion min­istries to put in place ac­ces­si­ble on­line school­ing sys­tems and en­sure that par­ents or chil­dren guardians who are blind or par­tial­ly sight­ed can ful­ly ac­cess ed­u­ca­tion ma­te­ri­als so they can pro­vide ad­e­quate sup­port to their chil­dren.

Health

17. The As­so­ci­a­tion calls on the gov­ern­ment and health au­thor­i­ties to pro­vide ac­ces­si­ble health equip­ment and ser­vices to all per­sons with dis­abil­i­ties in­clud­ing per­sons who are blind and par­tial­ly sight­ed.

Em­ploy­ment

18. The As­so­ci­a­tion rec­om­mends that the gov­ern­ment, pri­vate sec­tor and non for prof­it or­ga­ni­za­tions put in place rea­son­able ac­com­mo­da­tion for per­sons with dis­abil­i­ties work­ing from their homes.

19. The As­so­ci­a­tion re­quests that the gov­ern­ment should pro­vide ex­tra in­cen­tives to em­ploy­ers to sus­tain em­ploy­ees es­pe­cial­ly per­sons with dis­abil­i­ties who are at a high­er risk of los­ing jobs.

The TTB­WA will con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing more calls for ac­tion as we con­tin­ue to gath­er in­put from our mem­bers and part­ners.