Pain Into Purpose Bermuda is encouraging the wearing of blue on Friday to raise awareness of road safety and remember those affected by collisions and crashes.

Sea of Blue Day is run in association with the charity Kijani Burgess Dream Award.

Pain Into Purpose Bermuda was formed after the death of 16-year-old Kijani Burgess on January 13, 2020, when his scooter hit a taxi and he fell into the path of a fire engine.

Antoinette Burgess, the teenager’s mother, established the Kijani Burgess Dream Award to provide educational funding to students.

She remembers her son as well as Jeremiah Phillips, who was killed on Sunday in a collision.

“Kijani was 16, Jeremiah was 17. They had so many dreams, and we will never get to experience and get to see come to fruition those dreams and plans that they had. And then we have fathers and mothers that have lost their lives,” Ms Burgess said.

“These people were breadwinners, a lot of them. So, we just want people to remember them, and that’s what I want. I want the community to remember them.”

Ms Burgess runs the charity and plays a role in Pain Into Purpose Bermuda, which was started by Kijani’s classmates.

“I run it in conjunction with the students. The students are all in school now. They have regular meetings and provide updates to me, and we meet with each other virtually,” she said.

“They are the voice and the people behind it, and they are the ones that run it. Any funds that are raised go strictly into the Pain Into Purpose campaign.”

Jeremiah is the first road fatality of the year. Last year, 13 road deaths were recorded.

“The minute we have another road fatality, it brings back your pain. So you feel the pain of another family that has to go through what you have gone through,” Ms Burgess said.

“It’s not just family, it’s friends, it’s their community, it could be their school, their work colleagues. It’s so impactful when someone has lost their lives on our roads.

“It helps me because it’s my way of helping someone out. It helps me remember Kijani in the way he loved to help others.”

“He just had a way of always putting others first, and no matter what someone else was going through, he was about ‘how can I help someone out’. If one of his classmates didn’t have lunch, he would go in his pocket and give them money for lunch or would share his lunch with them.”

“My last conversation with him on the day that he passed was ‘mommy, have faith’ — that it will be worked out, and that keeps me going.

“So this is just something his classmates decided to do, and it’s a way to honour Kijani by also remembering and reminding people that we have lost many bright lights within our community.”

Grieving the loss of her son, Ms Burgess finds solace in taking part in the Pain Into Purpose Bermuda annual event.

“For me, it’s encouragement to remember those people whose light has gone out and also for us to take our time on the roads. We are all road users, we are walkers, runners, bikers, we are in our cars and even on the bus, so we are all responsible for all our actions.”

The Pain Into Purpose Bermuda event will also include an annual tag day at the Phoenix Centre, GPO Church Street, and Lindo’s Warwick.

“Last year was our first tag day. So we’ve just been using those funds finally to support the families that have lost loved ones on our roads,” Ms Burgess said.

Taggers will be outside Phoenix and Lindo’s with tag buckets. The locations are open from 8.30am to 5pm.

“This year, it’s going to be a little bit different. We are still calling it a tag day, but we are actually giving out pens. Instead of receiving our tag, you will actually receive a pen.

“That pen has our Pain Into Purpose logo on it. We decided to try something different because we felt having a pen is more impactful because you write with it and you will carry it.”

The pens were an anonymous donation.

Pain Into Purpose Bermuda encourages random acts of kindness in a road victim’s memory.

“It could be something as small as saying thank you to the person next to you at the grocery store, anything as a random act of kindness. It helps me when someone says ‘good morning, good afternoon’ and they don’t know what I’m going through,” Ms Burgess said.

“It really helps because I could be having a horrible day, just finished crying and someone saying ‘good morning’ and they don’t know me and it brightens my day,”

Pain Into Purpose is still working on putting together a book that will include stories of those who have lost loved ones to road accidents.

Pain Into Purpose Bermuda encourages Sea of Blue day participants to post pictures on Facebook and Instagram.