Ryan Ba­choo

Lead Ed­i­tor - News­gath­er­ing

ryan.ba­choo@cnc3.co.tt

“Nev­er in my wildest dreams!”

That was the re­sponse from T&T’s first blind in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tor, Ali­cia Pauline Lalite-Eti­enne, when asked yes­ter­day if she ever thought she would serve in Par­lia­ment.

Lalite-Eti­enne took her oath of of­fice hav­ing been asked by Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo to be one of nine in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors in the 13th Par­lia­ment, which was opened at the Red House, Port-of-Spain, with much spec­ta­cle.

Speak­ing af­ter­wards, Lalite-Eti­enne told the me­dia she al­ways thought she would re­main a staunch ad­vo­cate for the vi­su­al­ly im­paired and dis­abled com­mu­ni­ty, but nev­er be­lieved she would have been giv­en a chance to serve as the na­tion’s first vi­su­al­ly im­paired per­son in the Sen­ate.

When asked if she will be push­ing for greater leg­is­la­tion to as­sist the dis­abled com­mu­ni­ty, she said, “I can­not say push. I will wait to see what is hap­pen­ing. We haven’t had our first sit­ting so I can­not an­swer that to say I will push for this. I have to ac­tu­al­ly see what’s on the agen­da, what’s on the ta­ble al­ready. Gen­er­al­ly, I will al­ways sup­port in­clu­sive­ness and in­clu­sion for per­sons with dis­abil­i­ties. I think it’s a lit­tle ear­ly to an­swer that ques­tion.”

She added, “Of course, it’s not just about per­sons with dis­abil­i­ties alone but as my oath says, I have pledged an oath to serve the peo­ple of T&T.”

She said the oc­ca­sion had made her feel a sense of pride, adding, “The feel­ing is very emo­tion­al be­cause it is giv­ing per­sons with dis­abil­i­ties a voice. Be­ing called to serve is a very hum­bling thing and it’s very mov­ing and it’s show­ing me ... it shows me you have to serve your peo­ple, and I am ded­i­cat­ed to my peo­ple so to­day is a mo­men­tous oc­ca­sion for peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties.”

She said she was in full sup­port of Pres­i­dent Kan­ga­loo’s call for greater as­sis­tance for the dis­abled com­mu­ni­ty in T&T.

Lalite-Eti­enne added, “I would like to tell my dis­abled com­mu­ni­ty; noth­ing is im­pos­si­ble with ded­i­ca­tion, hard work and a strong mind and a pas­sion. We have to as­sert our­selves, we have to get our voic­es heard and the on­ly way our voic­es could be heard is if we as­sert our­selves and get our­selves out there so that peo­ple will know what we are ca­pa­ble of, peo­ple will know we have a lot of ca­pa­bil­i­ties and we can con­tribute to the place we live in.”

In ad­di­tion to work­ing with peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties, Lalite-Eti­enne is al­so at­tached to UWI’s Fac­ul­ty of So­cial Sci­ences, spe­cial­is­ing in Hu­man Re­source Man­age­ment, and is fin­ish­ing her the­sis while lec­tur­ing.

Lalite-Eti­enne was born with re­tini­tis pig­men­tosa (RP), a pro­gres­sive ge­net­ic eye con­di­tion, and was forced to nav­i­gate life with vi­su­al im­pair­ment from an ear­ly age.

She grad­u­at­ed sum­ma cum laude from Mon­roe Col­lege in the Unit­ed States, earn­ing an as­so­ciate de­gree, bach­e­lor’s de­gree, and a mas­ter’s in busi­ness ad­min­is­tra­tion. She is cur­rent­ly pur­su­ing a PhD in Busi­ness Ad­min­is­tra­tion with a spe­cial­i­sa­tion in Hu­man Re­source Man­age­ment at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI), St Au­gus­tine. Her doc­tor­al the­sis fo­cus­es on the at­ti­tudes and per­cep­tions to­wards per­sons with dis­abil­i­ties in or­gan­i­sa­tions in T&T and the US.

Lalite-Eti­enne served in the T&T Blind Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion (TTB­WA) for a decade, con­tribut­ing as a li­brar­i­an, com­put­er lit­er­a­cy teacher, adap­tive tech­nol­o­gy in­struc­tor, and train­er for in­di­vid­u­als in­ter­act­ing with the blind and dis­abled. She al­so con­duct­ed train­ing ses­sions on adap­tive tech­nol­o­gy for em­ploy­ees at the Na­tion­al Li­brary and In­for­ma­tion Sys­tem Au­thor­i­ty (NALIS) and com­plet­ed an in­tern­ship at the Unit­ed Na­tions, broad­en­ing her ad­vo­ca­cy and pro­fes­sion­al scope.

TTW­BA: Sig­nif­i­cant mile­stone

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Blind Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion (TTB­WA) says the his­toric ap­point­ment of in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tor Lalite-Eti­enne as the na­tion’s first vi­su­al­ly im­paired per­son to serve in the Sen­ate is “a sig­nif­i­cant mile­stone.”

In a re­lease yes­ter­day, the TTB­WA cel­e­brat­ed Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo’s his­toric se­lec­tion.

“This ground-break­ing achieve­ment marks a sig­nif­i­cant mile­stone in the na­tion’s jour­ney to­ward in­clu­siv­i­ty and rep­re­sen­ta­tion for per­sons with dis­abil­i­ties,” the TTW­BA said.

“De­spite fac­ing so­ci­etal chal­lenges and dis­crim­i­na­tion, she has con­sis­tent­ly demon­strat­ed re­silience and de­ter­mi­na­tion.”

It added, “Ali­cia’s ap­point­ment to the Sen­ate is not on­ly a per­son­al achieve­ment but al­so a bea­con of hope and progress for the blind and dis­abled com­mu­ni­ty in T&T. Her lived ex­pe­ri­ences and pro­fes­sion­al ex­per­tise unique­ly po­si­tion her to ad­vo­cate ef­fec­tive­ly for poli­cies that pro­mote in­clu­siv­i­ty, ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty, and equal op­por­tu­ni­ties for all cit­i­zens.”

TTB­WA ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer Ken­neth Suratt said, “Ali­cia’s jour­ney em­bod­ies the spir­it of per­se­ver­ance and the pur­suit of equal­i­ty. Her voice in the Sen­ate will un­doubt­ed­ly bring a deep­er un­der­stand­ing and ap­pre­ci­a­tion for the chal­lenges faced by per­sons with dis­abil­i­ties, lead­ing to more in­formed and com­pas­sion­ate pol­i­cy­mak­ing.”