“Just ask anybody for Marie,” the excited voice over the phone explained.

Marie St Brie is a well-known pillar of the community of Choiseul and she was inviting the UNDP team to visit her as she shared her inspiring story of resilience.

From a young age, Marie was determined to succeed. She decided that acquiring a skill was the best way to achieve her goals and learning from her mother, she became a skilled potter specialising in coal pots. As a woman-entrepreneur, she plied her trade to tourists and locals who visited the picturesque Choiseul community renowned for its art and hand-crafted items, especially coal pots!

Raising 6 “big children” and building her own home, a wall structure that serves as both home and workshop, this exuberant lady could not have foreseen that her life would drastically change after a seemingly innocent injury would result in the removal of her leg. The United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) estimates that the overall prevalence of disability will be 9.4% by 2050 due to demographic changes.[1] Within the Caribbean, a high prevalence and increasing annual rate of diabetes in Saint Lucia - 11.6% (2019) has also resulted in associated complications, contributing to a high rate of limb amputation. This is a plight faced by many Saint Lucian’s.

“I couldn’t stay here,” Marie explained her inability to live on her own after the initial amputation, “so I stayed by my aunt and I asked myself what will I do now.” Ever resilient, Marie turned to selling baked nuts and packaging turmeric for sale to support herself as it was difficult to manoeuvre and create her pottery to the scale she had before.

But help would come a few years later in the form of a phone call, when Marie’s eldest daughter called to inform her that she was selected to be a beneficiary of the UNDP-NCPD Prosthethic project.

“One day my daughter called me and told me, ‘eh, I have a story for you, you have to come up to Vieux Fort on Wednesday’ I say for what? [She said] ‘for a leg.’  

Marie admitted that when she first received the news she thought it was a joke, but on realising the truth her excitement was palpable.

“I’m glad so much I couldn’t even sleep that night” she reminisced with the team before detailing the process of receiving her leg which began with an interview and proceeded to the fitting. The team at the prosthetic centre fitted Marie with her leg and then provided a whole day therapy session to allow her to practice with the leg inclusive of practicing walking and ascending and descending stairs.

It has been 3 weeks since Marie received her above the knee prosthesis, a process that included 5 visits before she was able to return to Choisel with her new limb. Now Marie is back on her feet and shares that while she still uses her wheelchair at times, her new limb allows her to be more mobile and she can once again walk in her community, go to town with her daughter and even dance!  

Marie has done so much in her life, she has raised 6 children, built her own home and continues to conduct her livelihood as a craft person and small farmer. A pinnacle of strength, she is still faced with many hurdles that are prohibitive including her socio-economic background, being a member of the crafts industry and a woman with a disability. This intervention provides her with an opportunity that she may not have been able to afford otherwise.

“It is very expensive” she mentioned noting that she asked herself how would she have made the money to afford a prosthesis. She pointed out that a prosthesis could cost almost EC$8000 and she would not have been able to afford that expense. The National Council for and of Persons with Disabilities is the only facility in  Saint Lucia that creates prosthetics, and while subsidized by the Government, the cost is still restrictive for some.

Marie is one of 5 women and 5 men to benefit from this project supported by UNDP and executed by the NCPD. Thanks to this support, Marie is back on her feet and continues to make her coal pots and other pottery!  

[1] ECLAC Study on Persons with Disabilities. 2011