Creating Spaces Where All Persons Feel Safe and Secure. I currently write my dream while I am surrounded by my best friend, her partner, her roommate and my partner. I feel safe here. I feel safe to embrace my partner publicly. I feel safe to express my views on racism and inequalities. On women and the ways in which their vulnerabilities are exploited. On the need for a shift in the mental health systems in my country.
I have always found myself to be a bit different than those around me. I found that I didn’t fit in. My values did not conform to the normal. When I was 13, I watched one of my closest friends hide her sexuality for fear of what our classmates might say. She didn’t know I was hiding my own. By 16, I started to experience the early symptoms of what would be diagnosed much later in life as Bipolar Disorder. I spent years hiding and denying who I was and what I was experiencing. I spend years turning away fundamental desires and needs I had because I was met with scorn. Around 20, I lost my dad to pancreatic cancer and something shifted. There was a fundamental need to carry on my father’s legacy, but what kind of world should I bring that legacy into? Since this, I have been committed to actively changing spaces around me. I have become outspoken on the need for there to be a greater focus on mental health within my region. I regularly engage in spaces that seek to bring reformation for the most vulnerable in our society by formulating or implementing policies that address such. Currently, I create this space in my job scope as the Matron for the Shelter for Abused and Battered Women and Children. Here I work on providing physical safety and psychosocial intervention for women who are survivors of abusive relationships. Understanding the profile of survivors, most experience mental distress due to their circumstances and the shelter provides a safe space for them to navigate this tumultuous season. Additionally, I am working on a project called MindSpace that will provide a virtual safe space for persons diagnosed and suffering from mental health illnesses. It will also provide wealthy information for their friends and family so that we can transform their current social environments into one where they feel safe and secure. My aim for the future is to do everything I can to make it safer for those that follow me.
Trinidad and Tobago 