Highway of Tears Forum Funding Announced

Saturday, March 17, 2007 04:01 AM

Another project aimed at raising awareness and preventing murders and disappearances along Highway 16 has been given Provincial funding.

The Children of the Street Society is based in Coquitlam and will receive $85,658 to facilitate 40 workshops in 10 communities from Prince George to Prince Rupert. The forums hope to reach 2,000 participants.

The Society has a long history of working with people in Vancouver's downtown east side. The Society has a focus on battling the sexual exploitation of youth. Together with local organizations, the Society will work to promote and implement further education and awareness projects. The total cost of the project is $241,458. The project was supported by the Regional District of Kitimat-Stikine, which is also supporting a special highway billboard campaign.

The workshops will run between September 2007 and March 2008.

Meantime, the Highway of Tears Symposium recommendations continue to be implemented. Coordinator Lisa Krebbs says a series of youth forums will be held in April. Those forums are being funded by Victim Services.

Families of the 11 women who have been murdered or gone missing along Highway 16 will be meeting with the RCMP again in April for a further update on the status of the investigations.

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Posted on Saturday, March 17, 2007 04:01 AM in News by 250 News

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Comments

Posted by: acrider54 on March 17 2007 6:37 AM

Put the money into busing instead of paying a high priced consultant to hold meetings.

Posted by: Chadermando on March 17 2007 7:03 AM

I think the highway billboard campaign is a great way to kill tourism in these parts. It seems the only media marketing Northern BC ever gets at a provincial or national level is negative media marketing (we could never hope to buy enough positive advertising to counter the negative news), and the billboards will only re-enforce that image.

Surely there are more constructive ways of dealing with this problem? I don't think tarnishing the image of a whole region is the solution to finding missing women engaging in high risk activities. I think education and dealing with the social issues should be the preventative focus, and not scaring away tourists re-enforcing negative images of this region.

Next to Hedi Fry this is one of these things that does more harm in the name of good; with the outsider image of our region the major casualty. It is hard to criticize a good cause, therefore is it not right to consider the impact that this kind of marketing has on our community? Or should we all be quiet out of respect for the cause of the campaign?

Posted by: Chadermando on March 17 2007 7:04 AM

I think housing is the source of the problem. Why are we not addressing the housing issue?

Posted by: Norm on March 17 2007 10:05 AM

the workshops will make aware, the problem that exists, but will it solve the problem?
the problem, i believe stems from the lack of moral and family stability in our society today.