Grace

Jane from Mangakino

I’m not sure about saying this but in light of the fact that a wonderful young woman was murdered in this country over the last days, as we cried with her family, the police, our prime minister, I ranted inside myself. What can we do? Over and over inside I scratched around how can we change how things are? Then tonight laying in bed suddenly an idea, an easy simple idea. Sure we need to change things with our boy children, our men, but what about women. We can do anything... let all hostels all establishments have on their reception wall a list of safety rules for all travellers. Let all hostels backpackers hotels motels run a free service where you can record where your going who with what time you will be back and cell phone numbers for contact.
Let’s teach all college aged girls self defence as a core class,this is not about weakness but about how strong we are. Let’s take our safety back into our own hands. Let the law makers think about pepper spray to help us be safer. Loud high pitched whistles there is so much we can do.
I am angry, I am old and these old eyes have seen so much violence towards women starting with my own mother as a small child I stood and watched on unable to change what was happening. Safety is easy it’s called common sense. We all need to help each other with ideas, violence is never ever the answer.
God bless you Grace, there are a long list of you ladies, this old lady will never forget.