A HERO was sometimes depicted as someone whose identity remained a secret, as he ran 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 community service activist Zion Benjamin.
COMMUNITY SERVICE has been a passion of 20-year-old Zion Benjamin since he was in his pre-teens. But in the past few years, he has become involved on a national level, and his greatest hope is to make a difference in the lives of the youth of TT.
The most recent platform for his altruism has been U-Report, which is managed by Unicef and the Office of the Prime Minister Gender and Child Affairs.
He explained U-Report is a platform which sends out polls to young people via WhatsApp and responses are accepted for a minimum of two weeks. The data from the responses is collected and assists in understanding what is happening in society.
The platform is a free, open-source messaging tool designed to address issues that young people care about. It allows for community participation, so marginalised groups and their communities have a voice on issues that matter to them, giving them the opportunity to influence and achieve positive change.
The anonymous responses are analysed in real time, and the data is mapped and compiled by age, gender and location. Results are displayed on a public U-Report website and anyone can access them.
“In this way, U-Report is ready to propel data-driven solutions to issues and give data to the leaders on issues our society faces,” he said.
Benjamin is a member of the Youth Steering Committee for U-Report as a representative of the Heroes Foundation, where he is vice-chair of partnerships as well as the Generation to Generation Council. The committee creates the poll questions, which are sometimes based on topics suggested by Gender and Child Affairs.
He said one issue of concern in TT is sexual violence, but in a recent U-Report poll answered by 412 people, 43 per cent of respondents said they were not aware of agencies or individuals to whom they could report cases of child abuse.
“Yes, the majority said they know, but that's still a large amount. It shows us we clearly need to do a lot of work in terms of educating persons on who these agencies are. So I think, in that way, U-Report is very useful in educating us.
“And there's always been a sentiment that we aren't really in touch wit
