The Trinidad and To­ba­go Chap­ter of Dis­abled Peo­ples' In­ter­na­tion­al (TT/DPI) is once again high­light­ing the im­por­tance of pro­mot­ing and pro­tect­ing the rights of dis­abled peo­ple in this coun­try, as the world gets clos­er to ob­serv­ing In­ter­na­tion­al Day of Per­sons with Dis­abil­i­ties.

The or­gan­i­sa­tion will be host­ing a news con­fer­ence on that com­mem­o­ra­tive day, Fri­day De­cem­ber 3rd, to put a spot­light on sev­er­al ar­eas where the qual­i­ty of life for dis­abled peo­ple has been neg­a­tive­ly af­fect­ed by the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

“This Press Con­fer­ence is geared to­wards high­light­ing and bring­ing much need­ed aware­ness of the is­sues faced by Per­sons of the Dif­fer­ent­ly-Abled Com­mu­ni­ty, in an at­tempt to pre­pare the build­ing blocks to a more eq­ui­table and sus­tain­able So­ci­ety,” an of­fi­cial state­ment from the lob­by said.

TT/DPI was es­tab­lished in 1985 as the or­gan­i­sa­tion in T&T “with over­all re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to achieve full par­tic­i­pa­tion of ALL per­sons with dis­abil­i­ties in the main­stream of life, through pro­mo­tion and pro­tec­tion of their hu­man rights”. 

TT/DPI is call­ing on rel­e­vant stake­hold­ers to in­ter­vene to en­sure dis­abled peo­ple are not left be­hind, as the coun­try learns to live with COVID-19.

Among the is­sues TT/DPI has flagged are:

Trans­porta­tion:  The com­plete col­lapse of the El­der­ly and Dif­fer­ent­ly-Abled Mo­bile Ser­vice (EL­DAMO).

Hous­ing:  In­ad­e­quate and un­equitable dis­tri­b­u­tion of af­ford­able hous­ing for the Dif­fer­ent­ly Abled Per­sons at the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (H.D.C)

Ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty:  Lim­it­ed ac­cess to pub­lic build­ings for the Dif­fer­ent­ly-Abled in­clud­ing in­ad­e­quate park­ing for the dis­abled, in­ac­ces­si­ble pub­lic rest rooms.  Oth­er ar­eas in­clude Em­ploy­ment and Ed­u­ca­tion­al op­por­tu­ni­ties.

This year, the Theme for the In­ter­na­tion­al Day of Per­sons with Dis­abil­i­ties is Lead­er­ship and Par­tic­i­pa­tion of Per­sons with Dis­abil­i­ties to­ward an In­clu­sive, ac­ces­si­ble and sus­tain­able Post-Covid-19 World.

The Unit­ed Na­tions notes that per­sons with dis­abil­i­ties in the world are among the hard­est hit by COVID-19. 

Ac­cord­ing to UN da­ta, of the one bil­lion pop­u­la­tion of per­sons with dis­abil­i­ties, 80% live in de­vel­op­ing coun­tries.  In ad­di­tion, an es­ti­mat­ed 46% of old­er peo­ple aged 60 years and over are peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties.  Al­so, one in every five women is like­ly to ex­pe­ri­ence dis­abil­i­ty in her life, while one in every ten chil­dren is a child with a dis­abil­i­ty.