Cherisse Moe

With all the neg­a­tive news that bom­bards us on a dai­ly ba­sis, it's easy to for­get that good news still ex­ists. The or­gan­i­sa­tion, Pro-C-VANE-Pro­tect Chil­dren Against Vi­o­lence, Abuse, Ne­glect and Ex­ploita­tion-is a much-need­ed re­minder that pos­i­tive things are still hap­pen­ing in T&T. Start­ed in 2010 by Daniel George and Sean Nichol­son, Pro-C-VANE is al­ready mak­ing a marked dif­fer­ence, with thou­sands of cit­i­zens ren­der­ing their sup­port to the cause. The or­gan­i­sa­tion hopes to part­ner with gov­ern­ment min­istries, faith-based or­gan­i­sa­tions, and oth­er rel­e­vant NGO's, us­ing the UNICEF guide­lines, to fight for the im­ple­men­ta­tion and en­force­ment of child rights in T&T and by ex­ten­sion, the Caribbean. George, 30, al­so a found­ing mem­ber of the com­mu­ni­ty-based or­gan­i­sa­tion, Pro­gres­sive Youths, said the is­sue of abuse con­tin­ued to rear its ug­ly head in T&T, seem­ing­ly un­abat­ed. The time for ac­tion, he said, was now. "Just last week, a teenag­er was hand­cuffed to a bed by a male rel­a­tive and beat­en with a piece of iron in her head. The moth­er re­fused to give the po­lice any in­for­ma­tion...This sto­ry nev­er made the news, and as far as we know, no ar­rest was made," he lament­ed. "These kin­da things hap­pen every day."

Re­al change

George, the son of HIV/AIDS ac­tivist, Jon­niebelle Welsh Davis, knows the is­sue of abuse all too well.

Ver­bal­ly and emo­tion­al­ly abused by fam­i­ly mem­bers as a child, George stat­ed that Pro-C-VANE, soon to be of­fi­cial­ly launched, was more than just an­oth­er so­cial or­gan­i­sa­tion. "We are here to bring about change," he de­clared. "I don't want chil­dren to go through what I went through...It still hurts to even talk about it." Fel­low group mem­ber, Kim­ber­ly Gay con­curred that abuse against chil­dren con­tin­ued to be swept un­der the rug, with many turn­ing a blind eye to the prob­lem. "The world has be­come so glob­alised that peo­ple don't care to look be­yond their four walls any­more. You could be liv­ing right next door to a child who is be­ing abused but no­body cares."

Tack­le the is­sue

George, a re­cent­ly mar­ried and soon to be fa­ther, al­so dis­closed that Pro-C-VANE, was work­ing on "de­sign­ing a work plan" to "get the job done." The Point Fortin na­tive called for the au­thor­i­ties to im­me­di­ate­ly pro­claim and en­force im­por­tant child rights leg­is­la­tion to help tack­le the is­sue. "We're de­mand­ing that they deal with these things and we'll be pulling up those or­gan­i­sa­tions with the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to pro­tect the na­tion's chil­dren." Gay stat­ed that Pro-C-VANE had al­ready been ap­proached by teach­ers of var­i­ous schools to ed­u­cate stu­dents about their rights. Hav­ing taught Sun­day School for 14 years, Gay, 27, added that work­ing with chil­dren had al­ways been her pas­sion. "I on­ly met George a few weeks ago but when I heard about the work that he's do­ing, it struck some­thing in my heart," said the Ch­agua­nas res­i­dent. "I don't have any de­fined role but I con­sid­er my­self a labour­er. Every­body has a part to play."

A call to ac­tion

Hop­ing to soon pur­sue a de­gree in so­cial work, George, a 2010 re­cip­i­ent of the Min­istry of Sport and Youth Af­fairs Youth Award, as­sert­ed that with faith, de­ter­mi­na­tion and com­mit­ment, all things are pos­si­ble. "I grew up hear­ing that I wasn't sup­posed to be here. That I was a mis­take. But one man, Shawn Wong, a co-founder of Pro­gres­sive Youths, saw some­thing in me. He helped me change my life around. It just takes one per­son to show that lev­el of con­cern." With big plans for Pro-C-VANE, George, a gospel artiste, who goes by the so­bri­quet, Ju­nior SAW­IC (Spir­i­tu­al Anoint­ed War­rior In Christ), said when it came to deal­ing with child abuse, less talk and more ac­tion was re­quired. "We need to stop say­ing that the young peo­ple are the fu­ture if we don't shape them in­to fu­ture lead­ers. The youth of to­mor­row ex­ists to­day." Gay shared sim­i­lar sen­ti­ments:"We all have de­ci­sions to make in our lives and one day we will be held ac­count­able for those de­ci­sions. This is a call to ac­tion."

More In­fo: Pro-C-VANE will soon launch the VANE Cam­paign, de­signed to help meet the ob­jec­tives of the Na­tion­al Plan of Ac­tion for chil­dren, which was for­mu­lat­ed by an in­ter-min­is­te­r­i­al com­mit­tee un­der the tute­lage of the Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment. Call 365-8479, 799-4263 or send an e-mail to proc­vaneal­lon­board@gmail.com for more de­tails.