The Trinidad and To­ba­go Blind Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion (TTB­WA) has praised the gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion to ban noisy fire­works on In­de­pen­dence Day, de­scrib­ing it as a cru­cial step to­ward pro­tect­ing the rights and dig­ni­ty of blind and vi­su­al­ly im­paired cit­i­zens.

In a me­dia re­lease, the TTB­WA ex­plained that sound serves as a pri­ma­ry tool for ori­en­ta­tion, safe­ty, and in­de­pen­dence for blind in­di­vid­u­als. The group not­ed that sud­den, un­con­trolled, and ex­ces­sive noise from fire­works can cause dis­ori­en­ta­tion, anx­i­ety, and height­ened vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty, and in some cas­es may even trig­ger trau­ma or place blind in­di­vid­u­als in harm’s way.

The as­so­ci­a­tion high­light­ed that it has long called for mea­sures to re­duce noise pol­lu­tion, stress­ing that un­like sight­ed peo­ple, blind in­di­vid­u­als can­not re­ly on vi­su­al cues to iden­ti­fy the source or di­rec­tion of loud sounds, leav­ing them at risk when fire­works erupt un­ex­pect­ed­ly in res­i­den­tial ar­eas.