National Victims of Crime Awareness Week: Award Recipients and Celebration Gala

2015-04-23

For the sixth consecutive year, the three locally based Victim Service Providers have hosted the National Victims of Crime Awareness Week gala evening honouring the work that victim services staff and volunteers do to make our community stronger. The Prince George RCMP’s Police-Based Victim Services, The Elizabeth Fry Society’s Community-Based Victim Services and the Prince George Native Friendship Centre’s Aboriginal Community-Based Victim Services, held the annual event last night.

This year the local focus of the week was engaging youth and overcoming victimization. As part of the gala celebration, five community members were honoured for their work in three categories:

Community Volunteers Engaging Youth:

Betty Clark – Betty has touched the lives of hundreds of youth in her work and as a youth boxing coach. Her students and ex-students are continually dropping by and checking in to say hi even 15 years after the fact. She is loyal, dedicated and connected to the youth she serves.

A Youth that Speaks Out Against Violence:

Megan Leslie – After the death of her sister, Loren Leslie, Megan has taken up the message of being safe in your interactions. She has been going to schools to talk to youth about her own experience of losing a sister to a violent crime and how she is healing from this tragedy.

Youth Service Providers that go Above and Beyond:

John Giannisis – contributed countless hours collaborating with several schools and the three VS programs to create an amazing experience for the youth and the community by choreographing and planning a flash mob to launch National Victims of Crime Awareness Week aimed at educating and bring awareness to issues involving youth and how to combat victimization.

Cst. Paul Starr – As the RCMP Youth Support Officer Cst. Starr has connected with countless youth and built some wonderful relationships with youth who, in the past, may not have felt comfortable getting to know a police officer. He has gone beyond the expectations of his role by engaging youth and even supplied groceries with his own money to help a youth with a unique home life situation so that his family could have a Thanksgiving dinner.

Val Jordan – Val Jordan works in the young parent program at the Elizabeth Fry Society and she is treated by her students like a beloved auntie. She has provided consistent support to young women facing very adult situations and she does so with respect, honour and kindness.

Congratulations to all of this year’s winners.

Please contact Bally Bassi, Manager of Justice & Social Programming at the Elizabeth Fry Society, for interviews and media inquiries. Bally can be reached at 250-563-1113.

Victim Services units support victims of crime throughout the often harrowing events surrounding a tragedy or trauma by providing crisis intervention, emotional support and information about the criminal justice system. This very important week of recognition and learning will offer many opportunities for the public to expand their scope of knowledge in relation to the issues victims of crime face, as well as the role Victim Services plays for Prince George citizens.

Krista Levar
RCMP Victim Services Coordinator
Prince George Detachment
Phone: 250-561-3373

Released by

Cpl. Craig Douglass

Communications NCO / Media Liaison Officer
Prince George RCMP
princegeorge.rcmp.ca
455 Victoria Street, Prince George, BC, V2L 0B7
Office: 250-561-3321
Cell: 250-640-1758

Email: bcrcmp@rcmp-grc.gc.ca

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