DEMOLITION will be an activity for girls as local female RCMP officers and a girls’ group will be demolishing an old, unwanted shack this Friday.
The shack, high on a hill along the Howe Creek Trail, is a dangerous, problem hangout area where young people drink and do drugs.
“It was an area identified as a problem by the [general duty RCMP] members,” said Terrace RCMP community policing officer Const. Angela Rabut, adding that she and Const. Kendra Felkar, who are spearheading the project, thought they’d run it past the girls in the Ksan Girls’ Camp.
Rabut and Felkar are doing several activities with the girls, who are age 11 to 15, this summer.
“And we proposed it to them and they were pretty happy [to do it],” said Rabut.
The female officers here have already made crafts with the girls and have two more activities in mind, one of which will be taking them canoeing. During that first activity together, they all began talking and some girls said they had been afraid of RCMP officers before, but weren’t anymore.
“I think it’s by sitting down and doing everyday things with them that they’re seeing us in a different light. We’re just regular girls too,” said Rabut, adding that for some of the girls most of their experiences with police have been negative.
The camp was put together after the RCMP, Ksan House Society and other organizations decided to take on the issue of how to create a safe woman this past May.
The answer was to create a sober one, which is done by giving them confidence, which is done through mentorship. And the Ksan Girls’ Camp, organized by the Ksan House Society, was born to promote health, happiness and confidence through mentorship for seven weeks as a pilot project this summer.