Fay­ola K J Fras­er

For more than 15 years, Sher­ron Har­ford has im­mersed her­self in the fight against do­mes­tic vi­o­lence in Trinidad and To­ba­go. Her work with shel­ters, her role in key or­gan­i­sa­tions such as the Coali­tion Against Do­mes­tic Vi­o­lence, The Shel­ter, and the Al­liance for State Ac­tion to End Gen­der-Based Vi­o­lence, and her ad­vo­ca­cy have helped sup­port count­less sur­vivors.

But at a cer­tain point, Har­ford be­gan ask­ing a deep­er ques­tion: Do we con­tin­ue to pro­vide the plas­ter for the cut—or do we find ways to pre­vent the cut in the first place? This shift in think­ing prompt­ed her to take a bold new di­rec­tion.

Her ini­tial jour­ney in­to ad­vo­ca­cy didn’t be­gin with a strate­gic plan—it be­gan through a friend. A call for help with fundrais­ing for a lo­cal NGO, The Shel­ter, turned in­to years of ded­i­cat­ed ser­vice, cul­mi­nat­ing in her role on the board.

Yet, over time, Har­ford re­alised that as im­pact­ful as shel­ters were, they were on­ly a re­sponse—nev­er a so­lu­tion. “There will nev­er be enough shel­ters,” she says plain­ly, “not un­til we ad­dress the root caus­es of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence.” This led her to seek oth­er av­enues to make an im­pact in the lives of women and girls in T&T.

With this epiphany, Har­ford turned her at­ten­tion to­ward pre­ven­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the lives of young girls. Armed with the con­vic­tion that girls need to be em­pow­ered ear­ly, she is an ad­vo­cate for chang­ing the nar­ra­tive sur­round­ing girls from a very young age, be­fore vi­o­lence be­comes nor­malised, and be­fore they be­lieve they are less than.

Al­though ex­ist­ing so­cial pro­grammes for boys were be­gin­ning to show promise, there was a glar­ing gap in ini­tia­tives de­signed specif­i­cal­ly for girls. A dot­ing grand­moth­er, or “Grin­ny” of 20 grand­chil­dren, Har­ford felt her ef­forts could fo­cus on sup­port­ing her grand­daugh­ter’s de­vel­op­ment in sports.

Her grand­son and grand­daugh­ter joined Pro Se­ries, a foot­ball club found­ed by Paul De­cle and Hap­py Hall, a pre­mier or­gan­is­er for foot­ball pro­grammes in T&T, with an in­ter­est in de­vel­op­ing and ex­pand­ing the sport. Watch­ing her grand­daugh­ter thrive opened Har­ford’s eyes to a pow­er­ful av­enue for change: sport as a tool for em­pow­er­ing girls.

Through her son and daugh­ter-in-law, who are part of the lead­er­ship body of Pro Se­ries, Har­ford be­came more in­volved in the foot­ball club, and for her, the mis­sion be­came clear­er. With­in the con­text of the club and its mis­sion, Pro Se­ries cre­at­ed a strong com­mu­ni­ty in which Har­ford was hap­py to take a sup­port­ing role, to build young girls in­to women, equipped with es­sen­tial life skills to stand up for them­selves.

The club does not on­ly fo­cus on sport, but on girls sup­port­ing girls, un­der­stand­ing their worth, and dream­ing big­ger. What be­came ev­i­dent was the lack of in­vest­ment in and sup­port for fe­male sports, and the club pur­sued path­ways such as prepar­ing per­son­al pro­files for the girls—doc­u­ments that could be shared with uni­ver­si­ties, foot­ball clubs, and even FI­FA.

Un­der­stand­ing the im­por­tance of con­fi­dence-build­ing and com­mu­ni­ca­tion skills, they brought in a jour­nal­ist to coach the girls on me­dia in­ter­views.

These ini­tia­tives had a rip­ple ef­fect, boost­ing the girls’ con­fi­dence in them­selves and their abil­i­ty to pur­sue sports pro­fes­sion­al­ly.

The pro­gramme’s holis­tic mod­el in­cludes every­thing from nu­tri­tion to aca­d­e­m­ic sup­port to me­dia train­ing—de­signed to raise strong, self-aware young women. Re­call­ing a quote she heard from a dear friend, Har­ford says “do­mes­tic vi­o­lence is com­pli­cat­ed, so it there­fore re­quires a com­pli­cat­ed so­lu­tion.”

For those who are un­able to form link­ages be­tween girls’ de­vel­op­ment in sport and re­duc­tion in do­mes­tic vi­o­lence, she iden­ti­fies sport as the en­try point, but with a much broad­er goal: to raise a gen­er­a­tion of girls who un­der­stand their val­ue, stand by each oth­er, and are equipped to thrive, mak­ing them less vul­ner­a­ble to male ma­nip­u­la­tion.

Pos­i­tive about this pre­ven­ta­tive ap­proach, Har­ford is, how­ev­er, still can­did about this fight against do­mes­tic vi­o­lence be­ing an up­hill bat­tle. In T&T, she said, fund­ing for sports still heav­i­ly favours boys. Girls are of­ten treat­ed as af­ter­thoughts, if ac­knowl­edged at all. But what is even more trou­bling to her is how girls are some­times treat­ed in the home or in schools.

“We don’t teach girls to sup­port one an­oth­er, and they can even be de­meaned, dis­cour­aged, or even sex­u­alised,” she says. “We teach them that their val­ue lies in how much favour they can earn—of­ten by be­ing sex­u­al­ly avail­able.”

Re­vers­ing that mind­set re­quires a cul­tur­al shift, be­gin­ning with how we ed­u­cate and dis­ci­pline our chil­dren.

Har­ford be­lieves that the first line of in­flu­ence lies with teach­ers and par­ents. How we talk to chil­dren, both boys and girls, how we han­dle dis­ci­pline, how we ad­dress bul­ly­ing and aca­d­e­m­ic strug­gles—all of this shapes their self-im­age.

Fo­cused specif­i­cal­ly on girls’ de­vel­op­ment, she em­pha­sis­es, “You don’t call a girl stu­pid or crazy, but in­stead teach her with dig­ni­ty. You in­ter­vene when she’s bul­lied. You show her that her first sup­port sys­tem should be oth­er girls.”

In a con­text where girls are of­ten pit­ted against each oth­er, she be­lieves that com­mu­ni­ty build­ing is at the heart of girls’ de­vel­op­ment. Har­ford’s strat­e­gy isn’t ide­al­ism—it’s an un­der­stand­ing she has come to, root­ed in years of hard-earned ex­pe­ri­ence.

One of Har­ford’s dreams is to cre­ate pro­grammes that not on­ly of­fer sta­bil­i­ty, but in­cor­po­rate ways to make women in­de­pen­dent and self-suf­fi­cient, even af­ter suf­fer­ing in­stances of do­mes­tic abuse. For ex­am­ple, she wish­es that in­stead of the need for shel­ters, there could be se­cure spaces, such as tea hous­es—a warm, wel­com­ing space where women can work, gain job skills, and grow self-suf­fi­cien­cy.

“When we talk about vi­o­lence, we have to think about safe­ty,” she says. And for Har­ford, safe­ty re­quires a mul­ti-in­sti­tu­tion­al ap­proach that in­cor­po­rates not on­ly the le­gal frame­works that are built to sup­port women, but al­so a con­cert­ed ef­fort to al­low for im­ple­men­ta­tion.

For ex­am­ple, the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty and the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion have a man­date to pro­tect girls, ed­u­cate boys and girls on re­spect, and teach women their rights.

Fif­teen years in the trench­es of ad­vo­ca­cy have taught Har­ford that im­pact and change will be achieved through in­ten­tion and com­mu­ni­ty.

It must come from the com­mu­ni­ty—from par­ents mak­ing strides like the moth­er of Saman­tha Isaacs (rep­re­sent­ed by Dou­glas Mendes, SC), who took the TTPS to court, faced with the death of her daugh­ter from do­mes­tic vi­o­lence, which cre­at­ed waves of ad­vo­ca­cy through­out the na­tion.

From coach­es like Paul De­cle, who have cre­at­ed struc­tures to em­pow­er girls, from vol­un­teers, teach­ers, and every­day cit­i­zens who be­lieve in do­ing more.

“We all have a role to play,” Har­ford says, and the role is to build the next gen­er­a­tion of young women raised with worth, imag­in­ing unique and cre­ative so­lu­tions to this so­ci­etal scourge, pre­vent­ing the roots of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence from tak­ing hold.