BASSETERRE, St. Kitts-THE St. Kitts-Nevis Association for Persons with Disabilities (SNAPD) recently held its 2009 Annual General Meeting (AGM) and elected a new executive body while outlining a clear vision for the association in 2009.

Anthony Mills, who began his service to the organisation in 2008, was elected as the new President for the next two years. He was nominated to the office by prior head Rockliffe Bowen.

Having been relatively dormant for several years, Mills said that SNAPD took several proactive initiatives in 2008 and met with new found success in their mission of “promoting equality and tackling discrimination in the disabled community”.

Among the marginally successful initiatives accomplished by SNAPD in the past year was the painting of sidewalk ramp accesses by the Traffic Department to prevent cars parking in front of them, an agreement by LIME’s Cayon Street offices to have their accessibility investigated and a verbal agreement by the Minister with responsibility of Health, Hon. Rupert Herbert, to be more committed to persons with disabilities’ needs in 2009.

Mills also outlined the improvement of SNAPD’s Awareness Campaign through “appearances in the media, getting involved in things like the crime symposium held by the St. Kitts-Nevis Youth Parliament and speaking to the kids at the Basseterre High School about the need to see their disabled peers as equals”.

Despite these victories for persons with disabilities, Mills said there were many roadblocks encountered in 2008.

Among those were fruitless meetings with the Deputy Prime Minister Hon. Sam Condor about ramps being built on the McKnight Community Centre and ignored requests for meetings with the Chamber of Industry & Commerce and the Christian Council.

“Living with a disability provides for some unique challenges and this makes us experts on our situation, so we are the ones that have got to educate government and the society about the things that affect us. Our approach at times may seem selfish and self centered, but if we are to achieve our goal of inclusion for persons with disabilities we must not waver in our fight to create a new national conversation,” Mills said.

At the AGM, the members of SNAPD made a renewed commitment to engage the community and further the issues most important to their organisation.

“We must continue to strive to ensure that all buildings which serve the public are accessible to disabled people.

“It is apparent that this nation is in need of disability legislation, we must continue to fight for the passage of and enforcement of an Individual with disabilities bill. The signing of and the ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities will make it easier to get such legislation, so we must continue to lobby government to sign on to this convention,” the SNAPD President stated.

Apart from Mills’ appointment, Rockliffe Bowen was elected as Vice President, Zethur Henry became Secretary, Octavia Nelson was chosen as Treasurer and Deslyn Hobson and Sheryl Thompson were approved as Executive Officers for the next two years.