Retired Canadian Football League player and Grey Cup champion JR LaRose will be the keynote speaker for this year’s Victims and Survivors of Crime Week gathering.
LaRose — who played for Edmonton and the British Columbia Lions during his career and has spoken to 400 groups since 2008 — will speak about how his path to success has been a long and hard-fought journey. The retired CFLer is set to appear at the Heritage Inn on Thursday, Nov. 26, from 7 to 8:30 p.m.
LaRose will speak to community service providers during two private sessions, while he will speak to the public in an open session. However, seats are limited, so you must register by Thursday, Nov. 19, by contacting Moose Jaw Transition House at [email protected].
Victims and Survivors of Crime Week was initially scheduled for May, but the federal Department of Justice changed the date to Nov. 22 to 28 to ensure organizations could still follow local pandemic guidelines.
This year’s week — with the theme Recognizing Courage, Renewing Commitment — will commemorate the 15th annual Victims’ Week, the 20th anniversary of the Federal Victims Strategy, and five years since the Canadian Victims Bill of Rights came into force.
“He will be talking very similarly to the service providers and the public. JR’s story is a lot about his resiliency in what he experienced as a young man and as a child,” explained Jenn Angus, executive director of Transition House and chair of the Partners Against Violence Moose Jaw and District committee. “He’ll be speaking about the barriers and violence he experienced — family violence and sexual violence — and how he came through it on the other side.”
The service providers — such as the police, RCMP, justice officials, probation services, John Howard Society, both school divisions, and Canadian Forces — will learn how to create resiliency in their clients. The public will learn how to build resiliency in themselves while also supporting their neighbours.
Members of the Partners Against Violence committee brought in LaRose after hearing positive reviews of a talk he gave in Saskatoon. Angus pointed out the retired football player is “an incredibly engaging and dynamic speaker” who will move people with his testimony.
LaRose’s presentation is one of several activities the committee has planned for Victims and Survivors of Crime Week.
One initiative is a white ribbon campaign, which three men on the Transition House board of directors — Kevin Pilsworth, Geoff Anderson and Jared Mathieson — are taking the lead on to promote. The trio is encouraging other businessmen to showcase white ribbons and put up posters that indicate there is no room for violence against women in the community.
“So it’s a men for men initiative, and they’ll develop a slide show of pictures based on that that we’ll be able to share on social media,” added Angus.
A second project is the creation of a service guide — either a poster or booklet — that provides information about the services available to victims and survivors of crime and who they can contact.
A third initiative will include a campaign wrap-up on social media at the end of November.
With a laugh, Angus said she hoped the speaking engagement with LaRose would occur, especially with so much day-to-day uncertainty around pandemic restrictions.
“We know that domestic violence has increased during this pandemic and that other crime (has happened) as well,” she continued. “And we really want to support community members. We want them to know their voices are heard and that there are supports and services are available, and that these service providers want to learn … the best ways to continue to support everyone in our community to live healthy and safe.”
If residents know of others who are victims of crime and are having difficulty coping at this time, they should reach out with support, Angus added. Residents should also be educated about what services are available in the community.
Further information about Victims and Survivors of Crime Week will be posted to the Transition House Facebook page.
