A youth program on Kahkewistahaw First Nation that elders credit with dramatically reduced crime will get nearly $700,000 over the next three years.
The Community Cadet Corps Project, launched four years ago, and focusing on instilling positive values and a sense of pride in Kahkewistahaw's youth currently has 44 participants ranging in age from nine to 18.
Acccording to Kiran Kashyap, a mental health therapist who introduced the program to Kahkewistahaw after being involved in a diversity committee at the Regina RCMP Depot which had a program, the outcomes the last four years have been very encouraging.
"We give them skills of being leaders and of making choices which are positive for them so we see a lot of resilience in our youth... basically shifting their belief system from the negative to the positive," Kashyap says.
"You could see the shift in this process of doing the whole thing - self esteem respect. Their demeanor changes, the whole world changes."
The program sees participants gather on a weekly basis and experience a weekly drill which, Kashyap explains, instills discipline. The group also focuses on instilling one virtue and which includes discuss and the participants practise it at home.
That virtue could include courage, helpfulness, respect or kindness. The following week when the group gathers again, participants are 'debriefed' about how they put that virtue into practise.
While the program has a specific age range, it provides opportunities for wider community involvement, says Kashyap. For example, those who graduate the program at age 18 can then become mentors. Parents can assume volunteer roles and younger siblings can become acquainted with the program and join when they're older.
"It's like bridging, passing from one generation to another. The good skills they learn here are transferred at school. We're seeing much less bullying, we're seeing much less anti-social behavior. We're seeing a lot more doing positive things in their homes because they need to practise that virtue every week,"
Kashyap says Kahkewistahaw, located southeast of Crooked Lake, is one of 10 programs in Saskatchewan getting $6.3 million in federal government funding under the National Crime Prevention Strategy's Crime Prevention Action Fund and Northern and Aboriginal Crime Prevention Fund.
Okanese First Nation near Balcarres will get $280,000 under its Okanese Youth Lifeskills Program.
Kahkewisthaw Chief Sheldon Taypotat is a strong supporter of the program and points to a reduction in the youth crime rate of 15 per cent while the crime rate for others has dropped by a third.
"We've been working with our elders, with our students and our school administrators to promote this and positive role-modelship," Taypotat says in a published report.
"When it started, kids were being shy, but now kids are stepping up, they want to be involved in programming."
