Devon’s going to get a job

Devon Garraway was not going to back down from his 14-day strike. Though his fellow protesters outside NFM’s (National Flour Mills) gates numbered just a handful, the support from taxi drivers and other road users who honked their horns as they drove past the group huddled under a tent, was encouraging.

But the real reason for Devon’s “stick-to-itiveness”, his optimism that he “will” obtain a job in the field of his choice at that establishment is a case of “self telling self”. He’s a motivational speaker and has lived by his own dose of medicine. It was a hobby he developed when he came to terms with his debilitating sickness — brittle bone disease. More precisely, Devon is a victim of osteogenesis imperfecta (OI) — a genetic disorder characterised by bones that break easily, often from little or no apparent cause. A person with OI can break a rib while coughing, or a leg by rolling over in their sleep. From three years of age Devon had been significantly affected by the disease. That was the last time he remembered walking without assistance. He’s now 29 years old and wheelchair-bound.

“I spent most of my life at Ward 41 of the Port-of-Spain General Hospital. I got a lot of broken limbs, fractures.” He explained: “I might get a simple fall, ah might bounce meh hand on a table, get a broken arm and spend three weeks in the hospital and every time I went there the nurses used to bawl ‘you again’ because they used to see me so regular. I just remember being in pain. “I remember having my two feet and two arms sling up in a traction. I fell off the bed. I could’ve been about five or six years,” Devon recalled. To compound matters, it wasn’t easy living apart from his mother who left the three-year-old in the care of his grandmother who lived in Laventille. His mother, Grenadian-born Ivar Roberts migrated to Trinidad with her firstborn in the late 70s. As Devon explained it, Roberts later migrated to the US Virgin Islands since “she always had the opinion that Trinidad was too slow and realising that I had a disability she probably thought I would’ve been a keep back.”

In all of his lifetime, he said, he’s perhaps seen his mother on three occasions. He never knew his father. Life was “very difficult”. He obtained his elementary education at Princess Elizabeth Special School and subsequently, secured a place at Malick Secondary Comprehensive. “To get to school was very costly on my grandmother. She spent $80 a day in transport hiring a taxi. Added to that she had four other kids to take care of,” Devon told People. He was the only wheelchair-bound student at the school, then. “At first the children were surprised seeing someone with a disability but after the first term I was able to get a lot of support from the students. When they could have, they used to pull me up to the Science block. One day I slipped out of their hands,” but no damage was done, he said. “I remember they carried me up for a class and I stayed back to finish some work and they went for lunch and forgot me there. I had to drag myself down and bring the chair down too... I was always a slow writer,” he grinned. He had the support of an MTS security official at the school lobbying on his behalf for the installation of a ramp for easy access to his classes. “That never worked out,” Devon revealed. So at the end of his five years at secondary school, he walked away with not a CXC pass in hand. He was unable to gain access to exams rooms since, none of them were at ground level. Not a damper on his drive to receive his reward, Devon did continuation classes the following year at Mucurapo Senior Comprehensive and obtained passes in English and Social Studies. “The classes for those two subjects were on ground floor,” he said.

Devon looked at his watch. It was late evening and the group was planning their strategy for the next day. Devon then waved to a carload of women who had pulled up alongside the tent to offer their support. He turned to me: “I have confidence that once you’re persistent at something, failure will not be the payment for my struggle.” He had applied for the post of clerical assistant in the Inventory and Labelling Departments at NFM five years ago. He refused to give up since “it became apparent that I was denied employment because I am wheelchair-bound. They gave us reasons that the forklifts might damage us. They said that when they built the company they didn’t take into consideration someone wheelchair-bound working there.” What if a job at NFM never comes through, I asked. He answered: “I haven’t looked at that possibility.”  Devon’s belief is now confirmed that there exists “employment discrimination” in Trinidad and Tobago. “Just sit in a wheelchair and go on a tour with us,” his wheelchair-bound friend George Daniel (also spokesperson for Disabled People International (DPI) of which Devon is a member) told me, “and only then you will understand the difficulties we go through everyday.” That was the first time Devon ever applied to any institution for a job. The Princess Elizabeth Centre absorbed his skills in electronics acquired at Goodwill Industries and International Correspondence School distance learning programme. He also did a “train the trainee” course at Metal Industries Co Ltd (MIC).

He worked two weeks for five years at Princess Elizabeth Centre as a part-time tutor. He was referred to Peakes Industries Ltd, where he secured a job in the Window unit line. But after two years, when the fumes at the company posed “a problem” and his salary no longer covered all his bills which now included mortgage on an apartment in Morvant, he was forced to go job hunting. In an attempt to increase his marketability, Devon grabbed the chance to become computer literate when DPI ran the course. Three months and counting, he’s been jobless. He receives a monthly social welfare cheque for $320. He told People: “It’s a struggle to live by the pittance the government gives us... The government needs to put the disabled people as priority, bring them to the mainstream of society. We need legislation in place. The Policy on Persons with Disabilities under the Ministry of Community Empowerment Sport and Consumer Affairs just sitting down there taking dust while we see all the hardships.” Devon added: “If we want development it doesn’t mean development of one section of the population but the disabled as well.” A week ago, Daniel met with the Minister responsible for social services Christine Kangaloo and discussed measures to bring “immediate relief” to disabled persons “in the area of transportation, housing and employment”.