Stephon Nicholas

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

At Mag­ic Park in Buc­coo, To­ba­go, in­clu­siv­i­ty comes as sec­ond na­ture.

The home for the Heal­ing with Hors­es Foun­da­tion pro­vides an abode for 11 ma­jes­tic gi­ants as well as dogs and cats.

The foun­da­tion was start­ed in 2010, pro­vid­ing a safe space for chil­dren ages six to 12 from var­i­ous back­grounds and the abil­i­ty to have fun and be cre­ative.

It lat­er ex­pand­ed to in­cor­po­rate equine na­ture ther­a­py de­signed for spe­cial needs peo­ple who get to groom, feed and in­ter­act with the an­i­mals.

Mem­bers of the pub­lic can al­so learn about the foun­da­tion and ride the hors­es through Buc­coo and the near­by beach.

The foun­da­tion cur­rent­ly em­ploys a num­ber of dif­fer­ent­ly abled peo­ple who help up­keep the park.

It came as no sur­prise that Heal­ing with Hors­es was named among the six win­ners of the Dig­i­cel Foun­da­tion In­no­va­tion Chal­lenge.

The win­ners each re­ceived grant fund­ing of up to $90,000 to­wards em­pow­er­ing the dis­abled.

Veroni­ka Danz­er LaFor­tune, who co­found­ed the foun­da­tion with her hus­band, said she was ex­cit­ed when she heard about the Dig­i­cel project.

With the sup­port of Dig­i­cel, the three-acre eco park is now ful­ly wheel­chair ac­ces­si­ble as it has been paved.

The sen­so­ry path­way has al­so been up­grad­ed, pro­vid­ing a safe area where par­tic­i­pants can walk bare­foot through tyres filled with var­i­ous ma­te­ri­als such as white sand, cot­ton, dried leaves, plas­tic, dirt, saw­dust and wa­ter.

She said the fund­ing helped up­grade the equine stir­rups to make it more com­fort­able for the dif­fer­ent­ly abled.

Dig­i­cel Foun­da­tion al­so pro­vid­ed a stipend for dif­fer­ent­ly abled em­ploy­ees for eight months.

The foun­da­tion al­so has a trail­er and mount­ing ramp to take the hors­es to the el­der­ly in the com­mu­ni­ty, as well as the schools.

“It is a space that is more than just a land. It is more than just hors­es. It is a place of heal­ing and pos­si­bil­i­ties,” she said.

She said in­ter­act­ing with spe­cial needs peo­ple has many ben­e­fits, as it forces peo­ple to slow down from the hus­tle and bus­tle.

Sec­re­tary of Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment and So­cial Pro­tec­tion Ian Pol­lard laud­ed the ini­tia­tive and said it was high-time the dis­abled were in­clud­ed in so­ci­ety.

He said one of his rel­a­tives is dis­abled, and he nev­er left her at home. He vowed to open four play­parks de­signed for the dis­abled dur­ing his tenure in of­fice.

“At present, there is no place al­lot­ted for these per­sons. We wan­na have a sen­so­ry play­park, so even the vi­su­al­ly im­paired can have ac­cess to it. There is no des­ig­nat­ed space for them to have fun with their fam­i­ly, so most of them are stuck at home. Par­ents, some of them are ei­ther ashamed, it is high time we in­clude them in so­ci­ety, but the on­ly way they can be in­clud­ed is if we pro­vide fa­cil­i­ties for them.”

The di­vi­sion re­cent­ly launched a num­ber of com­mu­ni­ty pro­grammes, and Pol­lard said it was im­por­tant the dis­abled be in­clud­ed.

Pol­lard said the Chief Sec­re­tary has al­so man­dat­ed the di­vi­sion hire and in­clude mem­bers of the dis­abled.

Georgina Pe­terkin, di­rec­tor, Dig­i­cel Foun­da­tion, said a more in­clu­sive so­ci­ety is crit­i­cal to so­ci­ety.

“In­clu­sion is not a box we check, it is a core con­vic­tion,” she said.

She said the meth­ods to break the bar­ri­ers faced by the dis­abled must be as di­verse as the dis­abil­i­ties they face.