Vi­o­lence against women and girls in Trinidad and To­ba­go might feel over­whelm­ing, but one group is aim­ing to change that by ap­ply­ing tech so­lu­tions to tack­le this is­sue. The An­drea Project re­cent­ly launched the bilin­gual video se­ries, “Help Save a Life”, to show peo­ple how they can use tools al­ready avail­able on their mo­bile phones to pro­tect them­selves and their loved ones, and even save their lives in an emer­gency.

The videos are avail­able on all ma­jor so­cial me­dia plat­forms and YouTube, and were sup­port­ed by the UNDP, UN Women and Trin­i­ty Ex­plo­ration and Pro­duc­tion Lim­it­ed.

A re­lease from the An­drea Project notes that it was cre­at­ed as a re­sult of the trag­ic death of 23-year-old An­drea Bharatt in Jan­u­ary 2021.

“The group was birthed from the un­for­tu­nate kid­nap­ping and mur­der of An­drea Bharatt in Jan­u­ary 2021. An­drea was a young, bright and loved 23-year-old who went miss­ing and was last seen en­ter­ing a taxi af­ter work head­ing home. One week lat­er, her body was dis­cov­ered,” the An­drea Project re­calls in the re­lease.

“This news shocked the coun­try and cit­i­zens were out­raged by the sim­i­lar­i­ties to cas­es like Ashan­ti Ri­ley who had al­so gone miss­ing and turned up dead. This in­spired many in­di­vid­u­als to take ac­tion.  Out of tragedy, the An­drea Project was birthed in March 2021, with a clear goal to em­pow­er, ed­u­cate and help pro­tect every­one from all forms of gen­der-based vi­o­lence.  The group came to­geth­er af­ter a call to ac­tion on so­cial me­dia was an­swered,” it added.

An­drea Project mem­ber, Michelle Aquing-Bis­soon, notes that the group, which com­pris­es a di­verse mem­ber­ship from the length and breadth of T&T and the di­as­po­ra, con­ceived of sev­er­al tech­no­log­i­cal in­no­va­tions that could be ap­plied to help keep women and girls safe.

“The process was very or­gan­ic, and in­cred­i­bly, the group has been meet­ing vir­tu­al­ly since the start,” she said.  “This set­ting al­lowed folks from around the coun­try and the world to be a part of the move­ment and bring their unique ideas, in­sights and ex­pe­ri­ences”.

The group even­tu­al­ly land­ed on the ‘Help Save a Life’ se­ries, a cam­paign of on­line videos which high­light fea­tures that al­ready ex­ist on mo­bile phones that could save lives in the event of an emer­gency.

In the videos, per­sons are taught how to con­serve one’s bat­tery in the event of an emer­gency; how to set up Emer­gency SOS con­tacts and trig­ger an emer­gency call; how to use What­sApp, Waze and oth­er com­mon tools to share one’s lo­ca­tion; and how to down­load and use the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice ap­pli­ca­tion, among oth­er tips and point­ers.

Chair­per­son of the An­drea Project, Re­nee Sandy, points out that the videos were shot pro­fes­sion­al­ly and record­ed in both Eng­lish and Span­ish, with the in­tent of reach­ing the Lati­no com­mu­ni­ty in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

“We re­al­ly en­cour­age mem­bers of the pub­lic to share these videos via their favourite plat­forms, and on their What­sApp and fam­i­ly groups chats as a way to max­i­mize the reach of these po­ten­tial­ly life-sav­ing tools,” Sandy said.

She added, “We en­cour­age you to join us, es­pe­cial­ly those technophiles out there—pro­gram­mers, de­sign­ers, so­cial me­dia gu­rus… but al­so ac­coun­tants, cre­atives, and oth­er skill sets!”

The ‘Help Save a Life’ videos are avail­able on YouTube, Face­book, In­sta­gram, Tik­Tok and LinkedIn.  Search for the han­dle @the­an­dreapro­ject.

Those in­ter­est­ed in learn­ing more or be­ing a part of the An­drea Project should:

●   Vis­it the web­site, www.the­an­dreapro­ject.com

●   Email the group at the­an­dreapro­ject.tt@gmail.com