International Women’s Day was celebrated around the world this past weekend, and in Yorkton Shelwin House and the Canadian Federation for University Women held an evening of celebration. Elizabeth Popowich, Manager of Public Information and Strategic Communication for the Regina Police Service, spoke at the event.
One of the major themes of her speech was the importance of community and local leadership to improve communities and make
them safer, something she says she has learned as someone speaking for the police force. She says one of the messages is that
everyone in a community has a role to play in making it safer place.
“Crime is a symptom and it’s not always the issue. The issue might be poverty, it might be addictions, it might be family dysfunction,
it might be the inability to resolve conflict without violence.
“Those are issues that aren’t necessarily criminal unto themselves, but they wind up as crime. By the time police have been called, the bad thing has already happened. When you look at making our communities better and safer, and addressing those kinds of issues, you have to get past the criminal event... That can’t be done with just one group alone.”
Shelwin House is one example of how community leadership is important on a local level, Popowich says. Having a place where women can put their life back together after leaving an abusive situation is something necessary, but also something that cannot be handled by the police themselves.
“In a community of this size, Yorkton itself is a wonderful community, and Shelwin House for thirty years has been doing amazing work to help people live in safety, and help people develop their own abilities to move back out in the world and move forward in a positive way.”
While she doesn’t consider herself as doing anything special or noteworthy, she does admit that she has been able to do things
that women before her could never have done. She says that a deliberate effort to involve women in different careers has been something that has been a wonderful change.
“In the span of my lifetime, so much has changed for women...
“A job like mine wouldn’t have even existed. I remember, for me it wasn’t that long ago, I started in the news room in Yorkton and there had only been one, maybe two women there before me. It was almost completely unheard of, and I felt like a fish out of water sometimes, but all of that changed,” Popowich says.
“We all have something to bring and we all have something to offer, regardless of gender, race, religion or whatever.”
She says groups like the Canadian Federation of University women, which co-hosted the event, are part of the reason why opportunities for women are better now than they were in previous decades.
“Think of how far-sighted those individuals were to create that group of women who could encourage and foster each other, and develop their community in a way that really hadn’t been seen before.”
It was also a homecoming for Popowich, who worked in Yorkton for 13 years. She says it’s wonderful to be back home, both to see what has changed, but also to have comfort to see how the community has stayed the same, and see friends she has known for over 30 years.
“Coming home to Yorkton is amazing on so many levels, not the least of which is having perogies and cabbage rolls in St. Mary’s Cultural Centre, because there isn’t any place that does it quite like they do here.”
