PROVIDE?FOR?THE?DISABLED to be included at Crop Over, said Joey Harper, president of the Barbados Council for the Disabled (BCD), to festival organizers.
Speaking at a Press conference yesterday at BCD’s Hamrambee House location to disclose the council’s activities to celebrate the month of the disabled, Harper said he has never heard of any governmental or entertainment-managing bodies seeking to include people with disabilities “in the revelry”.
“I do not mean as an afterthought, but as a focal point – we do not want to be isolated or to be set apart, we want to be included, not on our terms but on equal terms.
“Just as bathroom facilities are set up to accommodate the able, set up an area where the blind can hear the music, the deaf can see the bands, the wheelchair users can join a band and a spot is allocated for a bar with clearly defined price lists and simple seating that is accessible,” he suggested.
The president also asked, “When was education too expensive to make available to a certain sector of the community?”
“The university spends millions of dollars on sporting facilities for students but finds it difficult to make the campus fully accessible; does this make sense?
“Persons with disabilities are not sheep; we do need to be shepherded. We need to be able to move on our own.”
Harper indicated that the BCD was seeking to remove real or imaginary barriers facing communities by developing support systems that will work for people with disabilities and their caregivers.
He added that the disabled community represented some of the poorest among us.
“The disabled have a right to work. It is not that they are trying to prove anything – just as women, black people and minorities demand the recognition of their right to work, the disabled demand the same right.
“Businesses and Government are not doing anyone a favour.”
