Persons with diverse abilities, they lead relatively normal lives in most places in the world.
But not in Belize, in Belize those with diverse abilities still struggle to access basic infrastructure, equal access to justice, even in some cases medication.
We had the conversation with BAPDA on Sunup on 7 last week and here's what the President Kenrick Theus told our hosts.
Kenrick Theus, President, Bapta
"There are many things that. The society is short of in relation to the rights of the disabled person, some of them are basic rights in other countries that we, that the people living there would expect that every country would have them, for example accessibility, for example accessibility to transportation, accessibility to buildings, we have buildings being built in the year 2023 that are commercial buildings that do not have access for persons with disability and then some of them that do have it's inadequate because the ramp is not at the right gradient so people are not able to access the buildings and then sometimes like for example let's say the Charles Bartlet Hyde building, there is a ramp there but it's not demarcated and people park right up next to it. That is where the disability parking should be so then how do I access it if a vehicle is parked right up next to it. I can't get out to probably try to get in. Apart from that we are looking for the rights of the disabled as it relates to medical issues and some of these people for example they need medication, they need to go of course the Women's Department does what they can but we are saying that more needs to be done in relations to assisting these persons that need medication, they don't have the money to buy such medication, um. And many other things have been taken for granted that you as an abled body person might have but a disabled person its foreign, foreign to him or her."
Theus says that one overacting remedy to these issues would be the government's passing of the equal Opportunities bill that has been left discarded for many many months.
