THERE was Gabrielle Union, a very successful Hollywood actress, talking about her experience being raped at 19, when she worked as a sales clerk in a store.

Looking at her talk publicly about what happened was very motivating for me.

This is one of the reasons television and its raison d’etre make some sense.

What was sad for me, though, was when she said that fortunately (then she hesitated and said unfortunately, it was unfortunate) it happened in a wealthy section of Los Angeles, where there is a rape crisis centre that is well-staffed and well-funded; there is a police station that is well-staffed and well-funded, there are medical services that are well-staffed and well-funded.

Everything there was well-staffed and well-funded, it would seem.

Her therapist helped her through the emotional trauma that resulted from this ordeal and the support services which she needed were there for her, well-staffed and well-funded.

She is advocating rape crisis centres in every community.

Connie Francis, another well-known Hollywood personality, was also raped and many years before was also advocating rape crisis centres.

They both used their experience to motivate them into positive action, which will benefit others.

I remember Fr. Robert Llanos in a sermon at church giving us this pearl to illustrate a point.

The devil had a clearing-out sale, he said.

He invited everyone to come to his warehouse and he had boxes opened; he was selling pride, lust, jealousy and all the other tools of his trade.

However, there was one box which was tightly sealed and way in the back.

One customer, who was curious and glimpsed the box in the back of those that were clearly visible, asked the devil, why is that box so far in the back?

“Bring it forward, so that I can see what it is,” he told him.

The devil said: “No, no, everything else is for sale except that one.”

Curiosity got the better of the customer.

He continued: “What is so precious that you will not sell it.”

The devil said: “I am keeping that one; no one is to touch it, because with that one I can continue to rule the world; you all can have everything else.”

Well, the custmer continued: “What is it?”

The devil brought the box out and on the label was written “Disillusionment”.

That was an amazing revelation for me.

I realised that disillusionment is the source of everything that is destructive to the human spirit.

When a human being becomes disillusioned, he/she loses that spirit of the God in us, the spirit of life.

We get the false impression that life is not worth living, we lost our reason for living, and if we do not understand why we were born in the first place we can become disillusioned very quickly.

Disillusionment is the source of all addictions.

Many a young person has been introduced to marijuana and other spiritually destructive drugs because of disillusionment, because they feel that life is not worth living.

Unhappiness surrounds them; they feel trapped and feel that they have no way out of the “hole” in which they find themselves.

Their gut is tied up in knots and it appears that they do not have anyone to help them untie the knots.

Gabrielle Union knows the importance of having a non-judgemental third person, “an ear with a heart” to help her through the distress.

She knows the importance of having well-staffed and well-funded agencies to assist citizens who are suffering from emotional trauma.

Many of us know that, too.

We know that these well-staffed, well-funded agencies will have the professional expertise to turn sad, unproductive citizens into happy, productive ones.

We know the urgency of this is for our beloved Trinidad and Tobago today.

I have been walking around and seeing the growing number of vagrants and disillusioned citizens.

I say to myself, “There, but for the grace of God, go I.”

All human beings are vulnerable to disillusionment.

The “devil” knows this.

All human beings, no matter what race, class, creed or ethnicity are vulnerable to giving up and need support at these times.

This is why I work so hard with young people to prevent them from giving up.

Mariama Children’s Museum & Teen Turf has been working with children and young people for the past 15 years to prevent disillusionment from taking over their souls.

They must be happy and know that life is worth living.

It is neither well-staffed nor well-funded, like so many other CBOs and NGOs that are keeping this country’s communities glued together.

The glue is becoming impotent in some communities, however.

We must continue to fight for the future, fight for the children.

We must know that the “devil” is disillusionment.

All human beings are susceptible to disillusionment.

This evil can be fought though, with well-staffed and well-funded agencies that are placed in all communities to look after the welfare of citizens.

We all know this.

But it appears that the ivory towers are so far removed from the ground that those who live in them can only see the tops of the buildings and believe that the more skyscrapers, factories and plants that there are, the better this country will be.

They need to come down to ground level and see the reality of disillusionment.

Now that I am writing this, I just got the thought that disillusionment can also cause you to stay in an ivory tower and hide from the reality.

Maybe, they, too, are disillusioned.

Those of us who know how to ward off disillusionment need to continue to advocate and help them to face the reality.