For as long as I can re­mem­ber, books have been a part of my world. For me, they didn’t come in the tra­di­tion­al way. I didn’t learn to read from look­ing at pic­ture books or try­ing to sound out words from ce­re­al box­es at the break­fast ta­ble. Be­ing blind meant my par­ents couldn’t just walk in­to a book­store and find me an age-ap­pro­pri­ate sto­ry­book.

They did read to me though, a lot. As such, my love for sto­ries was cul­ti­vat­ed at a young age. I was one of those chil­dren who used to re­quest sto­ries every time I was asked to take a nap, much to the dis­may of my poor moth­er, I am sure.

Sto­ries be­came rou­tine, com­fort, en­ter­tain­ment, and es­cape all at once. They were how I learned about the world be­yond my im­me­di­ate sur­round­ings. They taught me how peo­ple spoke, how emo­tions sound­ed, how con­flict and joy could ex­ist in the same space. Long be­fore I had ac­cess to books on my own terms, sto­ries were al­ready shap­ing how I thought and imag­ined. In fact, I would even go as far as to say they are the rea­son for my wild imag­i­na­tion now, and al­so why I en­joy telling my own sto­ries.

I re­mem­ber the first time my fa­ther brought me a sto­ry­book. It was print­ed text, of course, hard­cov­er, and I loved the smell of that book. But the re­al kick­er? The cas­sette tape that came with it. To me, that tape wasn’t just a tape. It was ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty in a world where there was lit­tle.

Be­ing able to press play by my­self mat­tered more than I can eas­i­ly ex­plain. It meant I didn’t have to wait. I could lis­ten when I want­ed, stop when I want­ed, rewind the parts I liked, and hear the sto­ry again and again. That small plas­tic tape gave me a sense of own­er­ship over sto­ries that I hadn’t had be­fore.

To­day, that world is fi­nal­ly be­gin­ning to change here in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Thanks to the Mar­rakesh Treaty, an in­ter­na­tion­al agree­ment de­signed to im­prove ac­cess to pub­lished works for peo­ple who are blind, vi­su­al­ly im­paired, or oth­er­wise print dis­abled, the Na­tion­al Li­brary and In­for­ma­tion Sys­tem Au­thor­i­ty (Nalis) has been des­ig­nat­ed as the coun­try’s au­tho­rised en­ti­ty for pro­duc­ing books in ac­ces­si­ble for­mats like Braille, au­dio, large print, and dig­i­tal for­mats. This sig­nals a shift from ac­cess be­ing rare or de­pen­dent on good­will to ac­cess be­ing recog­nised as some­thing peo­ple are en­ti­tled to.

Un­der this frame­work, Nalis now con­verts lo­cal ma­te­ri­als and par­tic­i­pates in the Ac­ces­si­ble Books Con­sor­tium’s Glob­al Book Ser­vice, mak­ing tens of thou­sands of ac­ces­si­ble ti­tles avail­able not just lo­cal­ly but in­ter­na­tion­al­ly as well. This means that books, in­clud­ing school texts and lit­er­ary works, can be legal­ly and read­i­ly trans­formed in­to for­mats that read­ers like me can use. Par­ents and ed­u­ca­tors are now en­cour­aged to reg­is­ter chil­dren at Nalis so they can ac­cess every­thing from EPUB files to DAISY and MP3 au­dio­books. Bring­ing the gift of read­ing to a blind or vi­su­al­ly im­paired child is now eas­i­er than it would have been when my fa­ther would have bought me that sto­ry­book. It on­ly takes hav­ing a li­brary card with Nalis to open a world of count­less sto­ries.

What that looks like in re­al life is choice, some­thing that was miss­ing for a long time. It means not hav­ing to de­pend en­tire­ly on some­one else to ac­cess in­for­ma­tion or en­joy a sto­ry. It means be­ing able to read in ways that fit your life, your sched­ule, and your learn­ing style.

For stu­dents and for count­less chil­dren and adults across the coun­try, these de­vel­op­ments are life-chang­ing. Sud­den­ly, books are no longer an ab­stract idea. They are ac­ces­si­ble, us­able, and en­joy­able. They be­come a part of dai­ly life, not a spe­cial treat or a rare oc­ca­sion.

That shift mat­ters. Stu­dents can study school texts in for­mats that work for them, chil­dren can dis­cov­er sto­ries with­out re­ly­ing en­tire­ly on some­one read­ing aloud, and fam­i­lies can share in the joy of read­ing to­geth­er, not as an ac­com­mo­da­tion, but as some­thing nor­mal. While there is still work to be done to make all books ful­ly ac­ces­si­ble, ini­tia­tives like Nalis and the Mar­rakesh Treaty show that read­ing is be­com­ing a right, not a priv­i­lege, for every­one, re­gard­less of vi­sion.

What Nalis is mak­ing pos­si­ble goes be­yond ac­cess; it’s about choice. To­day, read­ers who are blind or vi­su­al­ly im­paired in Trinidad and To­ba­go are no longer con­fined to a sin­gle way of read­ing. We can choose Braille, au­dio­books, EPUB files, DAISY for­mats, or what­ev­er best fits our lives, our learn­ing styles, and our mo­ments. We don’t have to read the way the world as­sumes we should. We get to read the way we want. That shift is pow­er­ful. It means free­dom, in­de­pen­dence, and dig­ni­ty wrapped in­to some­thing as or­di­nary and joy­ful as a book. That is what the fu­ture of ac­ces­si­ble read­ing in T&T looks like: not lim­i­ta­tion, not wait­ing, but choice, re­al choice on our own terms.