With financial support from Trigon Terminals, the Prince Rupert Aboriginal Community Services Society (PRACSS) is now providing a wider and more sustained range of high-impact cultural connection workshops within the local community.
Strengthening connections with Indigenous heritage is often an effective way of helping people who have been involved with the criminal justice system to find more promising pathways forward. PRACSS will use a $25,000 grant from Trigon’s Community Investment Fund to expand its cultural connections work in the months ahead.
Through its Restorative Justice Program, PRACSS works with Crown counsel, probation officers and the RCMP to address the over-representation of Indigenous peoples in the criminal justice system. It does so by offering a variety of workshops to clients who have committed offences – on topics such as anger management and addiction support – as alternatives to incarceration.
Late last year, it also began piloting the integration of cultural activities into its programs, including such things as regalia making, cedar weaving, cultural tours, and fish harvesting.
“The rich cultural heritage of the Coast Tsimshian peoples is an important and valued feature of life here in Northwest BC and something that enriches us all,” says Trigon CEO Rob Booker. “Creating greater opportunities for cultural reconnection to help address troubling issues like over-representation in the criminal justice system is something we’re pleased to support.”
“Our workshops are particularly valuable for Indigenous clients who live off-reserve and may have limited connection with their own cultural heritage,” says PRACSS Executive Director Miranda Kessler. “Many of them also don’t have the means to access this sort of programming themselves. And we’ve found that these opportunities are very effective in helping many of our clients build healthier relationships with themselves, their families and communities of origin.”
