The Immigrant Welcome Centre (IWC) has released an updated framework to support the community’s response to discrimination, racism, and hate in Campbell River and is inviting other organizations to get involved.
The protocol, which has been in place for more than a decade, provides community groups with tools to respond to racist, discriminatory or hate-motivated incidents. The update includes new support from the Resilience BC Anti-Racism Network. Resilience BC is a provincially-funded program that offers a consistent way of responding to racism, which includes reporting incidents to the IWC to help identify community trends.
IWC is the lead organization in the Campbell River spoke. The Network currently has 36 spokes across the province involving more than 50 communities.
The City of Campbell River is one of sixteen stakeholders that have signed on to the protocol. Others include the Campbell River and District Chamber of Commerce, Campbell River Volunteer Society and the Campbell River and North Island Transition Society among others.
“As mayor for the City of Campbell River, I am very supportive of the protocol agreement developed by the Immigrant Welcome Centre to address the issues of discrimination, racism, and hate crimes,” Mayor Andy Adams said.
Other organizations who want to sign on to the protocol or who want to learn more about it can reach out to IWC at info@immigrantwelcome.ca. The protocol is also available on the IWC website.
“It was important to re-establish the importance of this protocol for supporting our communities in consistently managing any issues around racism, discrimination, and hate,” IWC Executive Director Jim Brennan said. “I think overwhelmingly our community is committed to doing the best they can to support individuals and groups and to move forward in a positive way, collectively. We’re providing safe places for people to report incidents and to look for solution-focused engagement when that happens.”
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marc.kitteringham@campbellrivermirror.com
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