Sunderlal Vylan Sonny is an author and disability advocate from Trinidad and Tobago whose life has been shaped by Cerebral Palsy, determination, faith and an extraordinary bond with his mother.<\/p>\n
Sonny was diagnosed as a baby after a lack of oxygen at birth affected his movement, leaving him with twisted fingers and feet and stiffness in his limbs. His family was initially told that he would not be able to walk or talk.<\/p>\n
With limited resources and no access to costly overseas therapy, his mother, Jualla, decided to create her own learning and rehabilitation environment at home.<\/p>\n
Doors and walls were labelled with large letters to help him learn. Television, video games, speech therapy, swimming and even movement through beach sand became part of his development.<\/p>\n
Over time, mother and son also developed their own ways of communicating and understanding each other.<\/p>\n
Sonny attended the Princess Elizabeth Centre for children with disabilities and made use of the PTSC ELDAMO bus service, which provides transportation for persons with disabilities.<\/p>\n
Through years of persistence, therapy, faith and encouragement, Sonny learned to walk at the age of eight. His journey did not end there, as he continued working to strengthen both his body and mind.<\/p>\n
His experiences eventually became the foundation for the memoir A Crooked Path Made Straight, which he co-authored with his mother.<\/p>\n
The book is not presented as a medical explanation of Cerebral Palsy. Instead, it focuses on what happened after the diagnosis, including the challenges the family faced, their faith in God and the sometimes difficult process of a mother and son learning how to understand and support each other.<\/p>\n
Today, Sonny is using his experience to advocate for greater access to rehabilitation services for children with disabilities in Trinidad and Tobago.<\/p>\n
He also believes parents raising children with disabilities need stronger counselling, guidance and emotional support, particularly during the early years following a diagnosis.<\/p>\n
His story carries a simple but powerful message: success does not require everyone’s journey to look the same.<\/p>\n
For Sonny, the important thing was never whether his road resembled anyone else’s. It was learning, despite every obstacle placed before him, how to keep moving along it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
From Being Told He\u2019d Never Walk To Becoming An Author, Sonny Continues Defying Expectations<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5255,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trinidad-and-tobago"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5256\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}