Dr Safeeya Mo­hammed

guardian.wemagazine@gmail.com

De­ter­mined to es­cape the shack­les of pover­ty and the en­vi­ron­ment of crime, Shi­han Han­i­fah Mar­va John-Lo­gan used her strug­gles to de­vel­op a for­mu­la to suc­ceed, and it is this same for­mu­la she is us­ing to carve a path­way for those in the com­mu­ni­ty to seek that el­e­va­tion as well.

She de­sires to see the youth of im­pov­er­ished com­mu­ni­ties nur­tured, so their up­bring­ing will not be a life of crime but pos­si­bil­i­ties.

John-Lo­gan is start­ing with En­ter­prise, her home­town, and her mis­sion is to en­cour­age all to em­brace the idea that there is no fail­ure, just chal­lenges. “Each One, Teach One,” is her mo­ti­vat­ing mantra!

Her jour­ney was not a bed of ros­es, how­ev­er, she has no re­grets. “I will not change any­thing be­cause it will change who I have be­come. I al­ways want­ed to be a de­fend­er of good. Pre­vent­ing and safe­guard­ing peo­ple from a life of pain and suf­fer­ing. I want­ed to pro­vide the op­por­tu­ni­ty for chil­dren to have the best of life. So my ca­reer as a so­cial en­tre­pre­neur and change agent chose me. I am a Trin­bag­on­ian, I am a moth­er, a wife, a grand­moth­er, a mar­tial arts prac­ti­tion­er, a so­cial work­er, a com­mu­ni­ty ac­tivist and most im­por­tant­ly, a child of the Most High God.”

Ed­u­ca­tion res­cues you from a life of pover­ty

John-Lo­gan re­calls, “Grow­ing up there were eight sib­lings in all– we are six girls, three boys. I grew up in Lendore Vil­lage, Trinidad and To­ba­go. My both par­ents were Grena­di­ans who mi­grat­ed to Trinidad for a bet­ter liv­ing. But, we were poor and when I say poor I mean re­al­ly poor. We did not have lights.

“Just imag­ine in those days, the bus was on­ly ten cents and many days I didn’t even have ten cents to reach to school. Mon­ey was hard to come by, so I had to walk to school, and some­times run to school. So, I be­came an ath­lete, not by choice but by force of cir­cum­stances. How­ev­er, we grew up on the foun­da­tion of ‘God is every­thing’. No mat­ter how poor you are, know that God loves you and be hon­est and true.”

She said, “So at a very ten­der age, I would help oth­er peo­ple in my com­mu­ni­ty, with sim­ple chores, help my peers with school­work, help se­nior cit­i­zens by read­ing the news­pa­per or clean­ing their homes. Many times, af­ter help­ing the peo­ple in my com­mu­ni­ty would give me a small to­ken for the ser­vice giv­en. I had no idea at that help­ing freely with­out look­ing for any re­ward would de­sign the path for my life, as a so­cial en­tre­pre­neur.

“I at­tend­ed Cara­pichaima Ju­nior Sec­ondary School and then Ch­agua­nas Se­nior Sec­ondary School and even in school I would as­sist my peers with their as­sign­ments and would stand up to the bul­lies that were tak­ing ad­van­tage of stu­dents. At the end of my sec­ondary school days, I did many cours­es in dif­fer­ent fields and skills un­til I was giv­en the op­por­tu­ni­ty to at­tend COSTAAT, where I at­tained my Bach­e­lor’s in So­cial Work with Ho­n­ours. My learn­ing and aca­d­e­m­ic achieve­ment ad­vanced with an­oth­er ac­cred­i­ta­tion, be­com­ing a Cer­ti­fied fam­i­ly and com­mu­ni­ty me­di­a­tor of Trinidad and To­ba­go Me­di­a­tion Board.”

Sports and mar­tial arts pro­vid­ed so­lu­tions

Mar­tial arts may not be the typ­i­cal sport for a fe­male, but her per­se­ver­ance broke that bar­ri­er. John-Lo­gan ob­tained her Shodan Rank in 2001, which is the first-de­gree black belt then moved on to the sec­ond-de­gree Nidan Dan Rank, fol­lowed by her third-de­gree black belt, San Dan which was her last grad­ing with her men­tor and in­struc­tor Dr Rev Shi­han Car­lyle Thorne.

“The knowl­edge he passed on to me and his oth­er stu­dents was in­valu­able. Af­ter his pass­ing in 2012, there was a vac­u­um in the com­mu­ni­ty of En­ter­prise, crime was spi­ralling out of con­trol. This mo­ti­vat­ed a dy­nam­ic group of par­ents and se­nior in­struc­tors of Thorne’s Mar­tial Arts Acad­e­my to dis­cuss a way for­ward for our youths and com­mu­ni­ty. Com­ing out of this meet­ing Ryu Dan Do­jo was birthed.”

Ryu Dan Em­pow­er­ment Foun­da­tion, fond­ly known as Ryu Dan Do­jo, is a mul­ti­cul­tur­al com­mu­ni­ty-based/non-gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­i­sa­tion es­tab­lished in 2013. The do­jo is a safe space, a space ded­i­cat­ed to sup­port­ing the so­cial, ed­u­ca­tion­al, and phys­i­cal de­vel­op­ment of all, for a health­i­er, safer, and more re­spect­ful, re­silient com­mu­ni­ty.

“We utilise our in­no­v­a­tive ‘Sport+ (Plus) Mod­el’ as a counter-vi­o­lence nar­ra­tive to ad­dress so­cial needs: Learn­ing and teach­ing tech­niques aimed at en­hanc­ing and en­cour­ag­ing self-reg­u­la­tion, cre­ativ­i­ty, im­proved aca­d­e­m­ic abil­i­ty and per­ti­nent life skills. We use mar­tial arts as a ve­hi­cle for change and a tool for so­cial in­clu­sion and in­te­gra­tion en­com­pass­ing a holis­tic de­vel­op­ment pro­gramme.

“Through Ryu Dan our work has cre­at­ed a safe haven for the youths who need­ed a way to es­cape the vi­o­lence that would erupt at times. Over the past ten years, the foun­da­tion’s ini­tia­tives have be­come a con­tin­ued and suc­cess­ful part of the lo­cal com­mu­ni­ty. Ryu Dan has im­ple­ment­ed projects along­side the US Em­bassy, the Unit­ed States Agency for In­ter­na­tion­al De­vel­op­ment (US­AID), Democ­ra­cy In­ter­na­tion­al, Unit­ed Na­tions De­vel­op­ment Pro­gramme (UNDP), and oth­er stake­hold­ers util­is­ing our Sports+ (Plus) Mod­el and Mar­tial Arts to sup­port ed­u­ca­tion, to re­duce crime and vi­o­lence in hotspot ar­eas in cen­tral Trinidad and else­where.”

Dur­ing this pe­ri­od the foun­da­tion has served more than 2,000 peo­ple di­rect­ly. The young girls and women of the com­mu­ni­ty al­so par­tic­i­pate in the ‘Sup­port, Ed­u­cate, Em­pow­er Women’ (SEEW) pro­grammes and are trained in soft fur­nish­ing and gar­ment con­struc­tion. “Our blend­ed ap­proach is utilised, where both Venezue­lan mi­grant and T&T lo­cals are learn­ing, train­ing, and so­cial­is­ing to­geth­er. This al­so serves as a strat­e­gy to re­duce the stig­ma, fear and xeno­pho­bia with­in the com­mu­ni­ty.”

Ad­vice for those fac­ing chal­lenges

For peo­ple fac­ing chal­lenges, John-Lo­gan said there was hope. “It’s not easy for youths right now but there is hope. My ad­vice to any­one strug­gling in dif­fi­cult cir­cum­stances is don’t be afraid to ask for help. Know that every­thing on­ly lasts for a sea­son. Pover­ty is hell, but you do have to stay there. You can use it as your lad­der to suc­cess.

“P-is for per­se­ver­ance

O-over­come the chal­lenges

V-is be­com­ing vic­to­ri­ous

E-ed­u­cate your­self

R-re­spect your­self

T-is for the time you in­vest in ed­u­ca­tion and de­vel­op­ment

Y-is for the yearn­ing to ex­cel to the great­est!”

Dr Maya An­gelou’s quote res­onates strong­ly here, “You may not con­trol all the events that hap­pen to you, but you can de­cide not to be re­duced by them.”