Carisa Lee

A group of Lo­cal Tik­tokkers have col­lab­o­rat­ed with a pro­duc­tion com­pa­ny to al­le­vi­ate gen­der-based vi­o­lence in this coun­try.

Sta­tis­tics show that one in every three women have been af­fect­ed by this type of vi­o­lence. A fig­ure that hit home for the mem­bers of Steven Ed­wards Pro­duc­tions dur­ing an on­line dra­ma class where a con­ver­sa­tion about abuse re­vealed that sev­en of the ten women there were sur­vivors.

“When Ashan­ti passed there was one par­tic­u­lar stu­dent who left a voice note and said Steven I can’t come to class be­cause what hap­pened to Ashan­ti hap­pened to her, the on­ly thing is was that she was left to be alive,” said Steven Ed­wards who re­count­ed a con­ver­sa­tion he had with one of his stu­dents.

He said the stu­dent told him that she begged her abusers to go home and Ashan­ti’s mur­der brought back trau­mat­ic mem­o­ries.

The ages of the women in the class ranged from teenage to ma­ture and af­ter their rev­e­la­tions the group de­cid­ed that it was time to take a stand against gen­der-based vi­o­lence. So, they de­vel­oped the Hand in Hand ini­tia­tive, a 40-day pro­gramme that will seek to ed­u­cate the pop­u­la­tion about this type of abuse through so­cial me­dia and face to face in­ter­ac­tion.

“It’s not some­thing that we can tack­le alone, it takes all of us, one hand doh clap,” Ed­wards said.

In the six weeks, they plan to vis­it safe hous­es, pro­vide on­line class­es for sur­vivors so they can be eman­ci­pat­ed and through their plays tell dif­fer­ent abuse sto­ries which can be viewed on their so­cial me­dia plat­forms us­ing the hash­tag hand­in­handtt.

Per­for­mance man­ag­er Ak­il Samuel ex­plained that one of the plays would fo­cus on the male preda­tor while an­oth­er would be called from vic­tim to vic­tor fo­cus­ing on sur­vivors of abuse.

“We want to bring ex­po­sure in this the Hand in Hand ini­tia­tive,” he said.

Lo­cal Tik­tokker Sachin Balkissoon who has over 25 thou­sand fol­low­ers on the app was part of the class, he said talk is cheap and it’s time to do more be­cause the next per­son could be you. He said one of his friends was a vic­tim of in­cest and had no one to talk to.

“She was raped by her cousin at a very young age, she can’t face the guy or fam­i­ly events she told her par­ents and they did noth­ing about it,” Balkissoon said.

He told Guardian Me­dia that he too had to make change with the way he treat­ed his women friends and the race de­bate or po­lit­i­cal de­bate sur­round­ing the deaths of women will not help pro­tect them.

To spread the word of the ini­tia­tive he re­cruit­ed sev­er­al lo­cal tik­tokkers which in­clud­ed Nikeisha Ram­lal who is al­so a sur­vivor of do­mes­tic abuse.

Us­ing her ex­pe­ri­ence, Ram­lal said a main is­sue is that women don’t talk about the abuse, some­thing she hopes she can change through her mes­sages to her over 100,000 fol­low­ers on the app.

“A lot of women like to keep it a se­cret and I‘ve been try­ing to fig­ure out why, and I was one of those women, why was I ashamed?” she asked her­self.

Ram­lal said all they want is to use their plat­forms to make a dif­fer­ence and if she can help five women open up about their abuse and seek help then she has done her job.

The 40 days start­ed yes­ter­day. To con­tact the Steven Ed­wards Pro­duc­tions call 763-6603 or vis­it so­cial me­dia plat­forms.