Shereen Baksh Do not pay token service to disability needs

The collection is immaculate and meticulous; and as she moves around her home you would never guess that Shereen is also legally blind.

But that’s not her defining characteristic by any means. In fact, if she didn’t happen to mention that when I asked for directions to her home I would have never known.

Born in Rio Claro, the eldest of four children and the only girl, she lived with her parents and grandparents, and her family still runs a shop in the now bustling city on the South East coast.

“My grandfather was an Imam; his shop was his office essentially and he was what you would really call a community leader in the true and positive sense of the word. I would sit there and see all these people coming in and listen to their stories as they sought advice from him. He had a passion for service.”

It is worth mentioning at this point that Shereen was not born legally blind.

A proud past student of Naparima Girls High School in San Fernando, she quickly moved on to study accounting and rapidly climbed the corporate ladder at Works Credit Union where she not only married her husband (now called WAS-band with a laugh as she is now happily divorced) and also became senior manager.

Her life would change suddenly on the morning of January 18, 2008 at 5 am, when on her way to work, the company vehicle she was in would round the corner near the old Southland Mall in San Fernando only to meet two cars, caught in a dual-lane drag race. Try as they did, the driver of one of the cars would swerve, as would the company driver of the vehicle Shereen was in, but they would ultimately end up in a violent, side-impact, collision. The next thing she knew, she found herself in the emergency room where she called a doctor she knew to her side and complained of growing increasingly cold. She was bleeding internally and massively so.

Ultimately, she would spend 105 days in the Intensive Care Unit, 28 of those in a coma. The ICU is a place where people seldom survive a few days, far less weeks on end. As she recovered later on, in a medical ward, it took her two weeks before she would finally acknowledge that she was blind.

“I remember the nurse telling me that the juice was right in front of me, but I kept asking ‘when are you going to remove the bandages from my eyes’ instead. I could not tell the difference between being awake and being in a dream sometimes,” she details of her first days recovering. The accident, and concomitant internal bleeding, had left her blind.

Though her company waited patiently and understandingly for her return to work, she would ultimately resign, believing it in their best interest too.

The first year was the most challenging. Her mother who moved in from the morning of the accident, would stay on to help her at home and she received lots of support from her friends and neighbours too.

One of those neighbours, Jeiel, would come to read to her; he was just six at the time. “He still looks out for me today,” she adds. “I would not have gotten through this without all the love and support I received from Almighty God and many persons especially my parents, my daughter, my brothers, my friends, neighbours and Lenora Poochoom, my valued helper.”

“I eventually acknowledged that this was God’s plan for me. The real test is not in dealing with what is happening as it’s happening – it’s in how you deal with it afterward, in looking for the positive aspect.”

During that time, she regained fractional improvements in her vision, just barely allowing her to determine sources of light and improving her confidence. On one evening out with her fellow Naps Girls (who called themselves ‘Ladies of the HaTT’ – an acronym for the ‘hill and tamarind tree’ synonymous with the school) Dr Natalie Dick asked Shereen if she would be interested in joining and serving on the board of the National Centre for Persons with Disabilities (NCPD) in 2013.

The NCPD operates a broad portfolio ranging from a full-time vocational school just behind the San Fernando General Hospital and a Unit on Seukaran Street that assists persons with more severe disabilities. The NGO is the leading agency regarding policy and frameworks for the national legislative agenda for Persons with Disabilities (PWD).

The NCPD also operates a business services division that functions alongside the training division that deals in varied industries such as book-binding, woodwork, agriculture and food prep. For Shereen, this was the perfect place to be – an environment that offered her a challenging corporate portfolio – but one that really made a difference.

“I know my work at the credit union helped to improve people’s lives too, it’s just that volunteering my time here creates a direct impact in a different and even more valuable sense.” Today, Shereen serves as the Chairman of the Board of Directors.

“There is still much left wanting for persons with disabilities as we widen our discussion to national issues. We have to become more sensitized to the real issues – including those of the PWD if we are to advance as a society. And much of the improvements for the PWD have just happened vikey vai – whether as the result of multi-national companies coming here to do business and bringing best-practices or by people seeing it on TV. Think about it, we didn’t have good lifeguards on our beaches until we had Baywatch and started demanding that too! What we need to demand is a Ministry that takes a look at those on the edges of society – maybe a Ministry or major department of the elderly and PWD. We have an aging population situation happening now.

“What we need to do too is really learn that living with a disability does not have a ‘look’ – we still associate persons with disabilities as people in a wheelchair. Just recently, when I was visiting Mount Hope Hospital, I overheard a security officer saying ‘But she doh look disabled’ simply because I stood up and was able to reach my way to the doorway. This has to change!” she laments.

“And one more thing.” she adds, “We must not pay token service to disability needs. Many of our wheelchair ramps are in disrepair. Let’s not only have these at the service of the persons with disabilities but also keep them well-maintained and operational. It can make all the difference in someone’s day.”

As we close our conversation, I point out that she particularly uses the phrase ‘persons with disabilities’, so she explains. “The UN and other international agencies have moved to change the language from ‘disabled’ and other phrases, because at the end of the day, we are talking about people, who have many characteristics, in addition to a disability. It’s an important distinction!”

As I pack up my laptop and gather my things, I meet her daughter, Farah. Shereen asks, “Would you like a cup of tea, or coffee, my daughter is excellent with either!” I decline politely, glancing at the gigantic curio before me with all the mugs, I wouldn’t know which one to choose, being a muggist myself.

To learn more contact the centre at

652-4880 or visit ncpdtt.org .