BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – THE Disability Association of St. Kitts and Nevis has been lobbying the government to make ‘Appendix F’ of the Building Code mandatory to those structures in the Federation within which differently-abled persons have to conduct business.
Currently, the Building Code does not demand buildings and other structures that differently-abled individuals frequent to carry ramps.
According to Anthony Mills, President of the Disabled Association, builders continue to neglect “Appendix F” in the Building Code which caters to the disabled within society.
“This is something that the government has to do. We are lobbying them. On more than one occasion we had written letters to the Prime Minister in getting that done,” Mills said, adding that “we can only lobby the government”.
The President however noted that they could not lobby the private sector for its implementation, but letters were dispatched to several private agencies to answer the cries of their grieving disabled customers.
He noted that one such organisation is LIME St. Kitts, which, for several years now, has a ramp in place to cater for smooth access to its Cayon Street establishment by the differently-abled.
“We had written a couple of letters to LIME for them to put a ramp in front of its offices… Kantours did it also and this was a result of us approaching management and asking them to put the ramps in place.”
Mills explained that when approached, several of the leading private sector entities were willing to make the necessary changes to include the differently-abled in society.
To this end, he called on the relevant government agency to make ‘Appendix F’ of the Building Code mandatory for construction agencies to have ramps installed when constructing buildings within the Federation that differently-abled persons have to frequent.
When asked about business entities discriminating against the differently-abled by not having facilities available to them, Mills stated that some establishments do show some degree of discrimination, “but most times it’s because they are not forced to have ramps in place”.
“Well, some of them are discriminating, but I don’t think much of it is maliciousness. I think it is because there is no law that states they have to; so they just don’t do it because it is something that is lacking in the society for a long time,” Mills stated.
He lamented that the perception of most able-bodied persons is that the differently-abled individuals “cannot make a meaningful contribution to society’.
