Community activist Gina Spence says she is unable to sleep at night as she feels the pain of all the families who have lost loved ones through gun violence.Ms Spence gave a heartfelt speech to the Hamilton Rotary Club just days before the first anniversary of the murder of her son-in-law, James “Junior” Lawes. The 26-year-old was shot dead outside Place’s Place on Dundonald Street on March 21 last year. He had been married to Greashena Spence-Lawes, Ms Spence’s daughter, for just four months.Ms Spence gave Rotarians her recommendations for tackling the Island’s spiralling violent crime saying everyone has to come together to help, starting with the Country’s leaders. She said she believed leaders needed to do more to “heal the Country” as so many people were in mourning.She said she was speaking up for every family who had lost someone through gun violence as she can “feel their pain”.Ms Spence said she had to “carry the burden of watching her nine-year-old grandson and her 27-year-old daughter pick up the broken pieces of their lives”.She said: “There are no words to express the impact that each of these unprecedented experiences have had on our family and my life personally.“I am a living testimony that families can make it through these perilous times and find refuge, strength and healing through prayer and faith... We have had some very difficult moments, but we press on.”Ms Spence said counselling had been “absolutely paramount” for her family to communicate their feelings, but she admitted to laying awake at night and wondering how other families were coping with their loss. She said: “I wonder how they deal with birthdays, Christmas, the anniversary of their loved ones death,I wonder how they tell their five and six-year-olds daddy is not coming home and that someone took his life. After wondering I pray for each of them knowing just how difficult it can be.”Ms Spence, who has worked for more than 30 years in the streets and prisons, said: “No one can deny that the unprecedented upsurge in gun violence and the senseless loss of life of so many of our young black men is nothing short of a tragedy.“No one can deny that it was the first of its kind for Bermuda and no one can deny that we as a community are all going to have to work together to find solutions and give of ourselves to bring healing to our community. “It is becoming more and more evident as we see children from family members of our faith community, government and civic leaders facing the same challenges as those whom the general public deems as a menace to society”Ms Spence said community leaders must take the time to meet the families of shooting victims to “stop history repeating itself.”She said talking to families would help them find out “what their needs are and how their children are surviving after such a traumatic experience.”However, Ms Spence said Government could not do it all on their own so she urged the entire community to come together and “network and pool their resources”. Ms Spence would like to see a National Day of mourning led by Premier Paula Cox and supported by all churches, businesses and community leaders.She said the Island needed to recognise the rise in gun violence was “an unprecedented event in history that required healing on a national level”.She also said an emergency response team should be set up for families to get counselling and be walked through the grieving process and a benevolent fund should be set up for families and children to assist with funeral costs, day-to-day living expenses, and educational costs.