The Location

Wyndham Grand Barbados, Sam Lord's Castle Resort & Spa
St. Philips, Barbados, West Indies
October 17 – 22, 2025

What We Do
The Caribbean Disability Network (CDN) will host its second annual regional conference in Bridgetown, Barbados, from
October 17 to 22, 2025. This year's conference will focus on the theme of inclusive education and is designed to bring
together a diverse group of stakeholders to share and discuss innovations, policies, and frameworks for equitable
access to quality education for persons with disabilities (PWDs) in the Caribbean.

Around 15% of the world’s population, or estimated 1 billion people, live with disabilities. They are the world’s largest minority.

​The imperative for this conference is to validate a global study commissioned by UNICEF.   The results of the UNICEF global study show the need for youth with disabilities to receive supportive program designs.   The Caribbean Disability Network and its partners seek to join this global mission bringing the Caribbean current in elevating the needs for their population of persons with disabilities.
The Objectives:
1. Promote best practices and frameworks for inclusive education in the Caribbean.
2. Highlight the voices and lived experiences of PWDs and their families.
3. Encourage inter-sectoral collaboration to build inclusive learning environments.
4. Develop a regional action plan and declaration to guide future initiatives.
5. Showcase innovative models through a poster presentation on best practices in inclusive education across the region.

Audience:
 Government policymakers and education officials
 Educators and academic administrators
 Disability advocates and disabled people’s organizations (DPOs)
 Researchers and development partners
 Students with disabilities and their families
 Regional and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs)
 International funding agencies
 Frontline service providers (police, nurses, first responders, etc.)
Conference Brochure
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PROGRAM

​Learn more about our program schedule.

Guest Speakers

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PARTNERS

SPONSORS

Our Committee Partners

Sorana Mitchell
Sorana Mitchell is a media professional based on the island Grenada. She is an active member of the Friends of the Mentally Ill, which is a non-profit organization that helps persons living with mental illnesses and their families. 

Sorana is also a mother and author of the memoir, “Still Smiling” found on Amazon.

The singer-songwriter enjoys socializing, laughing, reading, and creating/telling stories and poetry. ​

Regina Snowden
​Emeritus Founder and past Executive Director of Partners for Youth with Disabilities, Inc. (PYD).
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Since the founding of PYD in 1985, Regina has played a major role in the creation of many first program designs for youth with disabilities, in Boston, MA, nationally and inter
nationally.  She helped to provide youth with disabilities in overcoming barriers by providing mentoring, education, career readiness, health, recreation and cultural opportunities.  These firsts in program designs, launched PYD to be selected to replicate our program models as the awareness of these types of programs became the focus of the nation.  Her efforts to make inclusion of youth with disabilities for all youth programming locally and nationally continues to be replicated.

PYD awards include Children's Hospital, Boston, Harvard School of Public Health, The City of Boston, The White House, The National Organization for Persons with Disabilities, Boston Public Schools, The Red Cross, The National Vocational Rehabilitation, The President's Committee on The Employment of Persons with Disabilities, Global award for PYD's Access to Theatre, The National Endowment for the Arts, and more.   PYD's collaboration with UNICEF created a white paper to show what youth with disabilities globally want to feel they can succeed.  This paper was presented at the Civil Rights Convention for Persons with Disabilities, The United Nations.  The youth and mentors of PYD have been featured and honored for their success, nationally and globally. 
PYD has been featured in many local and national media venues. 
A favorite phase of Regina:

"If you are always trying to be normal, you will never know how amazing you can be."    Maya Angelou

Leonid Johnson
​Leonid Johnson is a committed community leader and volunteer. He is active in the community and serves on various nonprofit boards and committees including Authentic Caribbean Foundation as a Board member. Leonid Johnson is a CEO & President and Founder of the CommUnity of the Deaf, Inc, who believes in the right of the D/deaf community in the Caribbean to use sign language to congerates on issues important to them and to have its interest represented at all levels in the society.

​I am currently a committee member of the American Deafness and Rehabilitation Association event and past subcommittee of the United Nations Civil Society Conference in Support of the Summit of the Future in Nairobi, Kenya.  He completed Education Advocates Training from National Association of the Deaf. The Certificate of Completion of Gwinnett Enterprise Center Business Basic Program from Gwinnett County Board of Commissioners in Georgia. The advocacy scope of the CommUnity of the Deaf, is to board a lifetime  and impact future generations in the areas of early intervention, education and  youth leaders and more in advancing early deaf and disability childhood policies and programs.

Peter George Smith
​Hailing from Jamaica, Peter George Smith is the managing consultant of Jonstar Consulting Group, a boutique management consulting firm in South Florida, where he currently resides. He is also an adjunct faculty and doctoral study chair at California Intercontinental University and Walden University in the United States. He has vast international experience from studying and working in several countries, including France, Belgium, the USA, the UK, The Bahamas, and Jamaica.

His previous professional roles include six years as a commercial attaché at the Jamaican Embassy in Brussels and deputy trade commissioner at the Jamaican High Commission in London, promoting trade and foreign direct investment for Jamaica. He also worked for several years in the FinTech industry as Vice President of Money Transfer Services at Fidelity Bank in The Bahamas, as Marketing Manager for the Caribbean at Western Union, and as Head of the Caribbean for MoneyGram in their regional offices in Florida.
He is a proponent of volunteerism and actively gives service through several nonprofit organizations. A Paul Harris Fellow, he is a founding member and director of the Rotary e-Club of Raleigh International, whose primary focus is an ongoing, long-term project with the Lister Mair/Gilby High School for the Deaf in Jamaica. He is also vice president of the University of the West Indies Alumni Association Florida Chapter, serves on the Executive Council of the Morant Bay High School Alumni Association in Jamaica, is vice president of the Jamaican Diaspora en France organization, and volunteers as a university student mentor with Global Mentorship Initiative.
Peter is fluent in French and Spanish and received a BA from the University of the West Indies in Jamaica, an MA from the Université Grenoble Alpes in France, and an MBA from Nova Southeastern University in Florida. He also holds a DBA from Walden University in Minnesota, with a concentration in International Business.
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He is big on life and people worldwide and practices this passion by traveling to the most remote places to experience different and unique cultures first-hand. He enjoys reading and doing a bit of writing whenever time permits. His blog, Through My Periscope, combines stories about his life adventures and writing passion.

Keith Jones
​Keith Jones Keith Jones is the President and CEO of SoulTouchin’ Experiences LLC,. It is an organization aimed at bringing a perspective to the issues of access inclusion and empowerment, which affect him as well as others who are persons with and without disabilities. To achieve this multicultural, cross-disability education and outreach efforts he collaborates and conducts trainings with the purpose of strengthening efforts to provide services and information for people with disabilities.

​The issues he tackles are wide ranging from immigration, criminal justice reform, health care and environmental justice just to name a few. Paralleling with his policy and social justice work Mr. Jones is a multitalented artist who along with Leroy Moore and Rob Temple founded Krip Hop Nation which is an international collection of artists with disabilities. Krip Hop Nation is currently celebrating 14 years with the recent Emmy Award winning success of their title song for the Netflix documentary of the Paralympic Games, Rising Phoenix and its critical acclaimed sound track.

Stafford Grant
Stafford Grant a retired soldier of the Jamaica Defence Force (JDF), Chairman of the Jamaica Diaspora NE Citizen Security Sector, 1st vice President of the Bethlehem Township Lions Club and Founder and President of the Jamaica Ex-servicemen and Women Foundation USA.
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I am very Passionate about helping others, "Volunteering". In 2022 I founded the Jamaica Ex-servicemen and Women Foundation Inc. USA with the vision of engaging in community development through fundraising activities that will enhance educational, social and civil activities fostering the principles of good citizenship. 
Taking great pride in collaboration with a focus on The Disabled, Elderly and youth community, gives me great joy of satisfaction to be volunteering for the Diaspora Disability Conference.

I love these two quotes:   Martin Luther King Jr. "Life's most persistent and urgent question is: "WHAT ARE YOU DOING FOR OTHERS?"
 
Horace Jackson Brown, Jr - "Earn your success based on service to others, not at the expense of others."

Michelle Brathwaite
​The heights that great men and women reached and kept, were not attained by sudden flight, but they, while their companions slept, were toiling upwards in the night’
Michelle Brathwaite, from Grenada has been the principal at the School or the Deaf for more than sixteen years. The institution serves as a resource center and provides support to students who are deaf within the mainstream schools. She is also the Founder and President of Advocacy Grenada Inc. A non-Governmental Organization supporting persons with disabilities.

Michelle holds a master’s in special education/Inclusive Education, from Roehampton University, London and Associate Degree in Teacher Education from University of the West Indies - TA. Marryshow Community College.
As part of her attainment she has achieved certificates in Human Rights; Global Education, Hearing Health Care, audiology, Quality assurance for Higher Educational Institutions in blended learning, Master Trainer in Inclusive Education, strategic planning, Referee for Boccia game and Project Management.

Michelle is an active member of the Grenada Paralympic Committee. She is an excellent facilitator in advocacy and awareness, special/inclusive education. Presently she is an adjunct lecturer for an online undergraduate degree in special education through a Caribbean University.
In her self-care time she loves, travelling and dancing. Travelling has taken her to China, Seychelles, Honduras, Belgium, Germany, Prague, The Netherlands, England, United States of America, Spain and many islands within the Caribbean.
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Her mantra is ‘ALL MEANS ALL’. The provision of education for All students.

Erin Brown
Erin Brown, (she/her) is a blonde-haired, black female who identifies as a limb difference mother of three and adaptive athlete amplifying the voices of people with disabilities globally. Erin's diagnosis of bone cancer in 2004 resulted in an above-the-knee amputation. Her disability enables a diverse journey of destroying stereotypes worldwide and leading Paralympic development as the first Para triathlete Paralympic hopeful. Erin, Disability Inclusion Consultant  is the founder of the first disability-led consultancy business Erin Brown Connects, Disability Advocacy and Inclusion Management  in The Bahamas. Currently at The University of The Bahamas in The Office of Disabilities and Compliance Erin ensures diversity, equity and disability inclusion in educational platforms and policies and procedures increasing access, inclusion and opportunities for all stakeholders with disabilities. 
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Andrew Sharpe
Andrew Sharpe is the founder and CEO of Authentic Caribbean Foundation Inc. (ACF), Boston, Massachusetts.
He is a Jamaican-born, festival, tourism, radio talk show host and non-profit Professional. The “Caribbean Diaspora Connect”, talk show host is on a mission to ensure members of the abilities community in the US and Caribbean are included in fun, festivities and economic empowerment activities.  Andrew is passionate and determined to ensure people with disabilities are empowered to achieve financial independence, protect themselves and manage the impact of climate change on their livelihoods as well as live a full and happy life.
Ensuring children of Caribbean heritage are connected to their roots is another of his passions and for that he created “Pickney Time  Story Time”, an after school programme currently being delivered virtually to young Caribbean diasporans in the USA.

Mr. Sharpe is a philanthropist, who is passionate about theatre and performing Caribbean drama and theatricals. He has performed the works for Louise Bennett Coverley “Miss Lou” and Paul Keens-Douglas to Caribbean audiences in Jamaica, The Cayman Islands and Massachusetts.

His passion for tourism, culture and acting led him to create both My Caribbean One World Expo and the Caribbean Rum and Food Festival each of which attracts a diverse audience of Caribbean and New Englanders annually. Andrew is also the convener of the Afro-Caribbean Black History Gala in Massachusetts.
Andrew holds a diploma in Tourism and Business Management. He has led Authentic Caribbean Foundation to being the recipient of  several Proclamations & Resolutions from the Governor of Massachusetts and the Cities of Boston, Brockton, Cambridge and Randolph for its outstanding efforts in promoting the upliftment and education of the disabled.  He plays a key role in creating and increasing awareness throughout the Commonwealth of Massachusetts as it relates to the recognition and honoring of June as National Caribbean American Heritage Month.

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