SAN­DRA L BLOOD

blood­l­sandy@gmail.com

Mu­si­cian, for­mer pan­nist and for­mer sec­ondary school teacher, Mar­cus C Bap­tiste MA, BA, CFM, said he had two big dreams, and when they ma­te­ri­alised, it was amaz­ing.

“Lit­tle did I know they would have been ground­break­ing and met the sat­is­fac­tion of so many peo­ple of a spe­cial com­mu­ni­ty,” Bap­tiste stat­ed.

“Help­ing the wheel­chair-bound know that they be­long and are wor­thy just like every­one else and be­ing a tour am­bas­sador and show-off Trinidad and To­ba­go (T&T) to the world were two of my pas­sions.”

Bap­tiste be­came founder/di­rec­tor of Tebet Tours Ltd (TTL), lo­cat­ed in San­gre Grande.

He said that out of TTL, the long-await­ed ser­vice called Tebet on Wheels (TOW) came in­to be­ing.

“It’s a mo­bile ser­vice de­signed to sup­port the wheel­chair com­mu­ni­ty with com­pre­hen­sive dai­ly liv­ing as­sis­tance along­side ac­ces­si­ble tourism ex­pe­ri­ences.

“Be­fore TTL, I was just a coun­try boy from San­gre Grande car­ry­ing peo­ple around Trinidad say­ing: ‘Al­lyuh come and see this,’ and from co­coa fields to teach­ing mu­sic, I be­came a tourist am­bas­sador for T&T – turn­ing pas­sion for cul­ture in­to pur­pose,” Bap­tiste ex­pressed.

Bap­tiste said as a law-abid­ing per­son, he en­sured TTL be­came a mem­ber of the T&T In­com­ing Tour Op­er­a­tors As­so­ci­a­tion.

“The in­no­v­a­tive TOW ser­vice rep­re­sents a sig­nif­i­cant ex­pan­sion be­yond tra­di­tion­al tourism of­fer­ings. The holis­tic needs of per­sons with mo­bil­i­ty chal­lenges are ad­dressed through med­ical ap­point­ment as­sis­tance, shop­ping sup­port, house­hold chores, and care­ful­ly cu­rat­ed ac­ces­si­ble cul­tur­al ex­pe­ri­ences.

“I’m de­vot­ed to ser­vice, and T&T. TOW aims to aug­ment ex­ist­ing wheel­chair ac­ces­si­ble ser­vices while pro­vid­ing com­pre­hen­sive sup­port specif­i­cal­ly for per­sons in the east of the is­land.

“I recog­nised ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty needs far be­yond recre­ation­al tourism, and while there are qual­i­ty wheel­chair-ac­ces­si­ble tour ser­vices avail­able, I saw an op­por­tu­ni­ty to pro­vide com­pre­hen­sive dai­ly liv­ing sup­port that en­ables true in­de­pen­dence for the wheel­chair com­mu­ni­ty, es­pe­cial­ly for per­sons in the east­ern part of the is­land,” shared Bap­tiste.

Bap­tiste said ser­vice is para­mount.

“As a re­li­able mo­bil­i­ty com­pan­ion, wheel­chair de­pen­dents can now com­fort­ably and in­de­pen­dent­ly ho­n­our doc­tor vis­its, hos­pi­tal ap­point­ments, com­plete phar­ma­cy runs, vis­it gro­ceries and ac­com­plish oth­er er­rands, in ad­di­tion to en­joy­ing tourism ex­pe­ri­ences such as cul­tur­al im­mer­sion tours, culi­nary ad­ven­tures, and vis­its to ap­pro­pri­ate her­itage sites.”

Of her Paramin tour ex­pe­ri­ence, wheel­chair-bound for­mer cul­tur­al en­ter­tain­er, cur­rent the­atre arts ed­u­ca­tor and dis­abil­i­ty ac­tivist, Myana In­niss, as­sured that peo­ple should no longer leave their loved ones at home, but take them along with such a ser­vice. The ac­ces­si­ble trans­porta­tion opens pre­vi­ous­ly dif­fi­cult des­ti­na­tions to the wheel­chair com­mu­ni­ty.”

Bap­tiste said he re­ceives ex­cel­lent cus­tomer re­views.

“Trust has been earned through punc­tu­al, knowl­edge­able, and cul­tur­al­ly-au­then­tic ex­pe­ri­ences.”

With all pro­fes­sion­al stan­dards for tour op­er­a­tors checked, Bap­tiste said he en­sures that TTL en­hances re­quire­ments with spe­cialised ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty train­ing and com­pre­hen­sive in­sur­ance cov­er­age for med­ical trans­port ser­vices.

“There’s been a grow­ing aware­ness of ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty as both a hu­man rights is­sue and an eco­nom­ic op­por­tu­ni­ty,” stat­ed Bap­tiste. “T&T’s tourism in­dus­try in­creas­ing­ly recog­nis­es that in­clu­sive ser­vices ben­e­fit not on­ly per­sons with dis­abil­i­ties but al­so en­hance the des­ti­na­tion’s rep­u­ta­tion for wel­com­ing all vis­i­tors.”

Fol­low­ing TOW’s pass­ing grade, Bap­tiste said he feels proud to have steered TTL to­wards part­ner­ships with med­ical fa­cil­i­ties, shop­ping cen­tres and com­mu­ni­ty or­gan­i­sa­tions, to de­vel­op pre­ferred provider net­works that stream­line ac­cess for wheel­chair users.

Re­gard­ing tours or ho­n­our­ing any type of ser­vice on a whole, Bap­tiste said ex­pe­ri­enc­ing beau­ti­ful places in T&T in­vig­o­rates an en­er­gy of shar­ing some­thing new with peo­ple.

“I find my­self go­ing any and every day be­cause when some­one wants to ex­pe­ri­ence T&T, TTL can’t help but want to make it hap­pen. That ex­cite­ment is con­ta­gious and in­vig­o­rat­ing.

“As T&T’s tourism in­dus­try con­tin­ues evolv­ing, TOW ex­em­pli­fies how es­tab­lished tourism op­er­a­tors can ex­pand their mis­sion to un­der­served com­mu­ni­ties while main­tain­ing pro­fes­sion­al ex­cel­lence and cul­tur­al au­then­tic­i­ty that de­fine the coun­try’s hos­pi­tal­i­ty in­dus­try,” Bap­tiste elab­o­rat­ed.