A HERO is sometimes depicted as someone whose identity remains a secret, as they run around in a cape doing good deeds.
However, today a real hero is often an individual admired for their courage, selflessness and noble qualities. Someone who is willing to take risks or make sacrifices to help others, while achieving a noble goal.
Our heroes of today live in our communities, and some of them we may know personally, but there are those who we have probably just heard about.
So in the coming weeks we will highlight several U-Reporters, young people who are a part of Unicef's flagship digital platform raising their voices on issues affecting them, who are heroes in their own right and have been doing exceptional things in their communities toward amplifying the voice of the youth of TT through their varied areas of specialty.
Today, we feature youth advocate Jewel Massiah.
JEWEL MASSIAH is on a quest advocating for young people to have safe spaces for hard conversations that might otherwise have been internalised to society's detriment.
This 20-year-old dynamic youth advocate believes that allowing young people to discuss their emotions freely will help them reach their greatest potential.
Through workshops, she has been helping youths with adolescent and adulthood challenges.
"I want people to understand that we are made with purpose, and where purpose is misunderstood or ambiguous, it is inevitable," she told Newsday during a cellphone interview recently.
"We may think that our lives are over or not going how we want. But the truth is we have not found purpose yet."
To any young person who might be despondent, she said: "My advice is to seek purpose. Ask yourself: Why am I here? What do I love? Where do I feel like I belong? The journey of figuring that out, for me, is where you find that relief."
"It is not easy to find out why we are here, but that is why we have these resources, people who can help us along that journey."
The Mt Lambert resident is a content creator, author of two published books, poet and business owner.
The former student of Bishop Anstey High School East, in Trincity, charged that wanting to know why people are here and what they can give to this world that no one else can is a personal decision.
"We have so much to talk about and tend to internalise it. In the Caribbean, we do a lot of internalising and not enough expressing," Massiah said.
She believes the problems of internalising start in the home.
"Parents have a lot going on and sometimes forget the children become teens and have feelings and ideas. The things that parents go through actively affect the child.
"A lot of things are happening, and no one is pausing to find out how it might affect their children. We then grow into adults who do not speak about how things impact us."
She began youth workshops with professionals like therapists to address these issues and give young people their say among their peers.
Massiah, a member of the Church of the Nazarene, recalled that she initially star
