By Charminae George
Leading players in the local entertainment industry, including Ignite 268 and Drastic, have collaborated with local youth group GenGe to produce a public service announcement geared toward reducing youth on youth violence.
Entitled ‘Fun Over Gun’, the video being widely circulated features fourth formers from local secondary schools encouraging their peers to stand in solidarity against youth violence.
“I think it’s an excellent initiative by this group, and it really ties in to the strategy we in the ministry and the government on the whole are looking to put in place,” Minister of Education Daryll Matthew told Observer yesterday.
Senator Shawn Nicholas also weighed in on the collaboration, saying, “What this says to me is that our young people are putting their hands up and saying, we have a voice and we want to be heard as well,” she stated.
Echoing their sentiments, Senator Samantha Marshall said, “I just want to commend the students who actually participated in that production, as well as those who would have organised for the production to come out. I think it’s very timely and it’s important that peers speak to their peers.”
As incidents of violence between young people continue to spark alarm across the country, the founder and CEO of GenGe, Briana Lewis, is urging the public not to lose hope in the youth population.
“Do not give up on the youths … we have to accept that crime is a part of society. However, we should go about it differently,” she stated on Observer AM yesterday.
Explaining how she handled a recent instance where teens tried to sneak into a teen event staged by the group, Euphoria, Lewis said, “There were quite a few of them who decided to jump the fence and got into the event. As a form of punishment for understanding where they would have gone wrong … they had to pick up garbage.”
During the staging of the event, Lewis reported that there were no incidents of fighting.
Lewis also indicated the intention of introducing a ‘GenGe Visa’ for events staged by the group in the future.
“One thing we are planning to implement is what we call the GenGe visa. To acquire a GenGe visa, you need a reference. This reference has nothing to do with being the most intelligent student; it’s a matter of being well behaved,” she said.
Regarding future plans, Lewis added that “our campaign is ongoing. We will be meeting some who we consider as delinquent ones over these next few weeks as well. You can look forward to some shirts, you can look forward to our event in the summer.”
The name ‘GenGe’ is a combination of the words ‘generation’ and ‘genesis’. According to Lewis, GenGe is best described as the ‘voice of the new generation’.
To keep up to date with the group’s activities, they can be found on Instagram and TikTok, under the name ‘@gen.ge1’.
