Podunk Below the Masthead (Monday, April 19, 2010)

Victims of Crime Awareness set to be recognized in the city, more wolf sightings causing concern and Cruise ship season is approaching for the north coast, some of the items from the Monday news cycle.

Daily News, front page headline story
LOCAL ORGANIZATION MARKS VICTIMS OF CRIME AWARENESS WEEK -- The Prince Rupert Community Enrichment Society is hosting a free public event on April 23 at the Lester Centre, designed to recognize Victims of Crime Awareness week in the province. The five hours at the PAC from 3 to 8 will allow local residents to drop in and learn more about the issues of violence in the community, towards that goal the Society will debut a DVD they have been working on to help engage the community in their quest to stop the violence.

Local officials continue to warn Rupert residents about the dangers to their pets as wolf and a cougar sighting continue to come in from around the city, the most recent report of an attack coming from  Metlakatla where a thin and sickly looking wolf attacked a small white dog, that wolf was shot by local residents. However, since then more wolves have been reported in the village. The number of sightings within  Prince Rupert have increased over the last few months as well, with a Terrace based Conservation officer recently spotted in the city searching for the cougar that had been prowling the west side of the city.

The Daily News provides coverage of the preliminary findings of the autopsy report on16 year old Emmalee McLean, and the initial report indicates the cause of death was due to drowning. The Northern View offered up the first report of the preliminary reports findings over the weekend posted to their website. The RCMP have listed the death as suspicious and continue with their investigation into the death, the Coroner's office is still completing work on its involvement with the case before the full report into the death will be released.

The sports section featured a look at the ongoing playoff championship series in the Prince Rupert Floor hocky league, with Far West leading the Coast 1 game to none in the best of three final.

(Daily News Archives for April 19)

Local organization marks Victims of Crime Awareness Week
Locals reminded to watch their yards
Update on McLean investigation 
Pipeline predicted to become campaign issue
For the love of animals

The Northern View
No new items were posted to the Northern View website for Monday.

CFTK TV 7 News
2010 Cruise Season around the corner-- CFTK looks at the upcoming Cruise ship season on the north coast (see article here)

CBC News Northern British Columbia, Daybreak North
No new items were posted to the Daybreak North website for Monday

Daybreak North is only posting selected items on their website now. The most recently posted items can be found on the archive page for Daybreak North click here

The Daily News, front page headline story
Local organization marks Victims of Crime Awareness Week 
By Monica Lamb-Yorski
The Daily News 
Monday, April 19, 2010

The Prince Rupert Community Enrichment Society is holding a free event at the Lester Centre of the Arts.

The event is being held on April 23 from 3 p.m. until 8 p.m. to recognize Victims of Crime Awareness Week in B.C.,

 “We have been working on a DVD and will be presenting it to the community that day,” said Don Reynierse, program director at PRCES. “We’re creating a tool that can be taken in bits or as a whole.”

 “The focus,” he added, “has been to engage the community on the issue of violence - and that we basically all need to say stop.”

A committee working on the video has interviewed local people, engaged high school students to create short videos that address violence, and interviewed someone in Prince Rupert that was affected by the Highway of Tears.

They have also searched You Tube and chosen a few pieces that will be effective in raising awareness to include in the project.

One of the videos from You Tube is called a Tea Party and depicts the legs of a boy wearing dad’s shoes and a girl wearing mom’s shoes, under the table at a tea party.

“It starts out pleasantly enough like a tea party and then it builds up to where she asks, “one lump or two”, and that’s when things sort of juxtaposition a bit, and he says, “five”. It’s a play on the word of lump,” Reynierse explained.

After that things deteriorate. She spills some tea, he complains, the table rattles, the dishes fall on the floor and then he gets up and you hear the sound of hitting.

“It’s all done in thirty seconds, but boom, you’re getting the idea that children see [how adults behave],” Reynierse added.

In addition to the You Tube videos, staff at the PRCES also wanted to bring in the community of Prince Rupert to help create some videos, with assistance from local photographer/video-grapher Lonnie Wishart.

They went to the drama departments at the high schools and the students came up with one about text messaging and another that involves graffiti in bathroom stalls.

The text-messaging scene builds up into a fight after two boys are texting and arguing. It was filmed in a classroom.

 “Even we, as adults, can go back in time and remember that everyone used to write on the bathroom walls. This is still happening today. These young people picked up on that and we filmed a small segment involving local students,” Reynierse said.

There’s also an interview with local counsellor and elder, Murray Smith, who shares his story and the transformation he has made in his life around issues of abuse.

“He starts talking about when he was younger and brings it around to the stage of his life right now,” Reynierse explained.

And while some of the video images focus on incidences of abuse, Selena Hallett, a ‘Children Who Witness Abuse’ counsellor at PRCES, said the focus of the videos is to engage the community to be ‘solution focused’.

“We don’t need to showcase all the problems in Prince Rupert. We need to say, okay these are the issues that are here now. And really they are global issues. Writing on the bathroom wall goes back to the cave,” Hallett commented.

When people come to the event on Friday, they will be asked to give feedback on the video in its formative stage, and some of those comments will become part of the final product. “We want the community piece,” said Reynierse.

 “Hopefully, we will be able to let people feel like there are resources here and they won’t be left to hang dry in Prince Rupert,” Reynierse said.

According to Hallet, The DVD is intended to be an instigator for discussion.

 “When this DVD is produced, people can take it out and show it to school groups,” added Cst. Eryn Stevenson of the RCMP.

 “In the last three weeks we’ve been doing presentations on cyber bullying. It starts off with people text messaging that they are going to get someone and then there’s a fight at the skate park. We’re telling kids if they walk away, they take away the audience and maybe the fight won’t happen,” Stevenson explained.

Victim Awareness Week Events are taking place across the province, including the broadcast of six different public service announcements Astral Media’s radio stations that will encourage people to call 1-800-563-0808 if they are victims of abuse or have witnessed abuse.