RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Chair of the Sir Arthur Lewis In­sti­tute of So­cial and Eco­nom­ic Stud­ies (SALIS­ES) Dis­abil­i­ty Stud­ies Re­search Clus­ter at the UWI Dr Be­phy­er Parey rec­om­mends a dis­abil­i­ty em­ploy­ment data­base to be es­tab­lished in T&T to al­low peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties to ap­ply for work.

The dis­abil­i­ty em­ploy­ment data­base once es­tab­lished, she says, can be used by em­ploy­ers who are will­ing to hire peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia in an ex­clu­sive in­ter­view on Tues­day, Dr Parey, who has done her PhD re­search in Dis­abil­i­ty Stud­ies, said the Clus­ter, launched a pub­lic aware­ness project on Mon­day, with the aim of show­cas­ing the con­tri­bu­tions be­ing made by about 28 per­sons with dis­abil­i­ties.

The project came about af­ter her team analysed the com­plaints lodged by peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties with the Equal Op­por­tu­ni­ty Com­mis­sion (EOC). Her team, which in­clud­ed Dr Elis­a­beth Kutsch­er and Ms Han­nah Enightoola, had ac­cess to the EOC case files through a Mem­o­ran­dum of Un­der­stand­ing be­tween the UWI and the EOC.

"Based on the find­ings there seems to be a lack of un­der­stand­ing of peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties. We plan to high­light the con­tri­bu­tions made by per­sons with dis­abil­i­ties to bring aware­ness to their con­tri­bu­tions which hope­ful­ly will cre­ate more op­por­tu­ni­ties for them in the fu­ture," Dr Parey said.

Say­ing peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties have an im­por­tant role to play in the work­place, Dr Parey called on em­ploy­ers to in­clude them in their work­force.

"Too of­ten dis­abled peo­ple are over­looked and side­lined," she added. She ex­plained that shows once a per­son be­comes dis­abled they are ei­ther ter­mi­nat­ed or sent on re­tire­ment leave.

"This is some­thing that hap­pened to my fa­ther 20 years ago when he be­came dis­abled. Just to think that we did not progress and we do not yet have poli­cies re­flect­ing the needs and rights of peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties is just in­hu­mane," she con­tend­ed.

Based on her PhD re­search, Dr Parey said not all em­ploy­ers are will­ing to have dis­abled peo­ple on their pay­roll. But there is ev­i­dence that those dis­abled peo­ple who have the op­por­tu­ni­ty to work are in­dus­tri­ous, ef­fi­cient and well able to cope.

She said dis­abled peo­ple al­ready suf­fer be­cause of a lack of in­clu­siv­i­ty in schools.

"Those who break through those bar­ri­ers and achieve their cer­ti­fi­ca­tion should be giv­en job op­por­tu­ni­ties," she added.

She said the par­tic­i­pants, from the sto­ries they shared, want­ed ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty and a change in the at­ti­tudes of non-dis­abled peo­ple.

"They want ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty to build­ings, pave­ments and recre­ation­al spaces like beach­es. They want so­ci­ety to un­der­stand dif­fer­ent dis­abil­i­ties and the dif­fer­ent ways they could man­i­fest. A shift in the lo­cal cul­tur­al mind­set is.

Per­sons with dis­abil­i­ties are hu­mans as well, with needs and wants like every­one else, de­serv­ing of love and re­spect like every­one else. They want op­por­tu­ni­ties to par­tic­i­pate rather than just be­ing over­looked," she added.

Dr Parey said dis­abil­i­ty is on the rise as T&T has an age­ing pop­u­la­tion. She not­ed that the Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment had plans of cre­at­ing a data­base of dis­abled peo­ple, not­ing that this could be used to set up an em­ploy­ment data­base ded­i­cat­ed sole­ly to those with dis­abil­i­ties.