BASSSETERRE, St. Kitts – AN initiative dubbed ‘Stop the Violence’, started by Chief Executive Officer and Founder of Hungry Frog Productions Cliff Richards, has taken off by leaps and bounds and he hopes that it would have a positive impact in driving down the level of crime within the Federation.
Yesterday (Feb. 6), several poster-like pictures made their debut on Facebook, featuring prominent individuals in Kittitian/Nevisian society, and boldly displayed on them are the words “Stop the Violence” and other corroborating expressions decrying violence and criminal activity.
In an interview with SKNVibes, Richards explained that the project was in the making for a number of years but it never manifested until now.
"This is something that I had a long time coming and I spoke with Officer Lauston Percival of Operation Future about it. This is something that we wanted to do but for some strange reason it never happened. They did something similar by putting the crosses in the Independence Square with the names of those who were murdered across the Federation over the past several years.”
Richards said with his heart constantly burdened by the level of crime faced by the Federation, he decided that it was time to finally unveil his project by drawing people’s attention to individuals who shared the stance and message of ending violence.
“I figured that I would try to reach out to people by using popular people or people who others look up to and put it in a way that people would see these people are not just saying it but are really standing up for what they are speaking about.
“It is good because it is putting faces and names to the Stop the Violence message.”
Richards said he did about 10 pictures and posted them to Facebook at about noon yesterday and the response was so overwhelming that he ended up creating and posting close to 60 posters on his Facebook page.
“I am hoping that people would just share them and become part of this positive message,” he added.
The initiative is launched at a time when the Federation is said to be going through a crisis with six murders and seven attempted murders taking place in January 2016 alone.
With the Security Forces now on high alert, their officers are often seen making their way through different communities, increasing their on-street presence and performing stop and search operations.
Notwithstanding, members of the Royal St. Christopher and Nevis Police Force’s High Command have called for the public to assist in whatever way it could in reducing the number of crimes committed within the Federation.
Richards told SKNVibes that his ‘Stop the Violence’ programme is but the first step and he has other initiatives to unveil as time progresses.
