Duane Hicks
After being in existence for about a decade now, the Rainy River Valley Safety Coalition has changed its name to Safe Communities Rainy River District.
“It better identifies the scope, and it’s in line with all the other safety movements in Canada,” administrative co-ordinator Grace Silander explained.
“We’ve all been designated as ‘Safe Communities,’ so we should identify ourselves as safe communities and where we are,” she reasoned.
“We are Safe Communities Rainy River District,” she added. “We all have signs before our municipalities that say we’re designated as safe communities, and our name should reflect that.”
Silander conceded the name change may take a little while to catch on, and that the public shouldn’t be surprised to see references to “Safe Communities Rainy River District (formerly the Rainy River Valley Safety Coalition)” in the near future.
The name change will involve tweaking the group’s website, as well as changes to its bylaws and banking information.
“There’s going to be some growing pains, but I think in the long run, it’s going to give us a more positive spin on what our movement is and what our actual missions and values are,” said Silander, noting the district safety group has been designated both by Safe Communities Canada and the World Health Organization.
“It puts us as part of the team,” she stressed.
The name change also is coming into effect now that the coalition, through Silander, is involved in reviewing other locales that are seeking “Safe Community” designation.
Last month, Silander was trained as a peer reviewer for other communities striving to meet “Safe Communities” standards. She will be going around and reviewing applications and coaching them to reach such status.
The peer reviewer is a new concept for the World Health Organization. The “Safe Communities” movement is growing so fast that the Karolinski Institute, which designates communities under the umbrella of the WHO, cannot keep up, Silander explained.
There have been four certifying centres set up around the world, one of which is Safe Communities Canada.
As a certified peer reviewer and site visitor, Silander is working for the World Health Organization completing reviews of community applications and weighing them against the “Safe Community” criterion.
Once the community appears to meet the criteria on paper, a site visit is completed to ensure there is, indeed, processes in place as documented. Reports then are sent to Safe Communities Canada, which works toward the designation event and celebrations.
Silander currently is part of a “Safe Communities” team working with two applicants—Burns, Wyoming and another community in Colorado.
Numerous communities in China also are interested in coming aboard.
