One social activist has spoken to the Enterprise Community, saying poverty is no excuse for crime. She is sharing her personal story, one of hardship, but also one of resilience and wanting better for herself.
00:00Tonight, a testimony from an activist at a final installment for 2025 of the TNT Scrap Iron Dealers Association Crime Talks and Hamper Initiative held in the enterprise community on Wednesday morning.
00:13Activist Marva John Logan's brother was arrested at the age of 19 after being sent to pick up a package in Valsane.
00:21She was 14 at the time, forcing her sister and her to work, including caring for the family's animals at 3 a.m. daily.
00:28The focus was in part to change their economic situation and in part to bail her brother out of prison.
00:35Logan says she persevered while barely having undergarments and wearing one pair of sneakers for five years.
00:41I didn't have no brand. My brand was my brand. A bright. Because when you're poor, you can't afford to be done.
00:49My father was a cane cutter. My mother was a domestic worker.
00:56Nine children. Not one day we went hungry.
01:01Whether we eat bacon, butter and drink black sage tea in the morning and black sage juice in the evening because one hot and one cold.
01:11Logan says they didn't turn to crime. In bringing a message, she says, is centered on peace, love and unity.
01:19The activist says crime prevention is about being fearless, selfless, passionate and determined to change the world by first changing oneself.
01:28Don't tell me you're poor. That pee in poverty is for your passion and your purpose. Find it.
01:36You see that hour where we like to say we poor and we shame. Remember my brother's still in prison?
01:48I want you to remember all what we're doing outside. Cleaning people's yard, helping them with their homework, running to get school clothes, doing things to get books and we back.
01:59My brother's still still in prison at 19. I'm still 14 doing all what I'm doing, all right?
02:03The activist states without being organized and relentless, negative elements, including crime, will consume people.
02:11Her brother turned to drugs in prison, but there was a light at the end of the tunnel and they succeeded in seeing his release from behind bars.
02:19Today, my brother is a mentor for AA, traveling all over Trinidad and Tobago and telling people.
02:28I'm telling people about his journey and about crime.
02:36John Logan has created the Riudan Empowerment Foundation with a sports model that has seen her travel to Austria, Vienna and on the United Nations platform, using her voice to speak about crime prevention.
02:50She tells the enterprise community that there are many initiatives set up by various groups, including non-governmental organizations, but she questions how many parents send their children to be involved in something good.
03:03The activist has left some food for thought.
03:06We cannot talk crime prevention and look at the police, the government, the MP, the councillor. Look at yourself.
03:15Everybody here, everybody, most persons here know who I am.
03:19Every single person here knows somebody involved in crime, but we don't see, we don't hear, we're deaf and we're dumb, and we're taking what they bring for us.
Be the first to comment