Walking out into the summer sunlight from the West Vancouver Police Department’s underground garage, Const. Jeff Wood has a gaggle of teens from Syria, Egypt, China, the Philippines, Iran, India, the United Arab Emirates and Canada trailing behind him.
Fifteen kids, who are part of a leadership camp put on by the North Shore Multicultural Society, have been invited by West Vancouver’s police, fire and bylaw departments to spend an afternoon interacting with first responders.
It begins with paddling the department’s custom canoe on Burrard Inlet with Wes Nahanee, a Squamish Nation artist who does a lot of cultural outreach.
Nahanee gives the kids a safety lesson, interspersed with traditional Squamish Nation stories about the origins of the Sisters (what most of us call the Lions) and Siwash rock.
A handful of the kids don’t speak English yet so it helps that Nahanee is demonstrative with his hands. He interlocks and then wiggles his fingers in unison, mimicking the rhythm his paddlers will have to follow.
“If you don’t do it like this, it’s like a wounded spider,” he says.
The clear highlight for the campers is a demonstration of the West Vancouver Police Department’s dog unit.
“It’s my job to get bit today,” says Wood, pulling on his protective gear.
The constables act out a scene in which Wood plays the perp trying to evade arrest. When the dog handler pulls the door open, the German shepherd bounds out and goes straight for Wood’s arm, drawing applause from the kids and some dropped jaws from people on the nearby tennis courts.
West Vancouver Fire and Rescue Services members turn the kids loose on a controlled flame with fire extinguishers, a bucket list item many adults dream about. The department has also polished up one of its firetrucks and the kids are set to get a hands-on tour of its many tools when the radio squawks, alerting the crew to a possible natural gas leak. The demonstration ends as quickly as it started, but the kids do get a few giggles when the firefighters strip down to their undies in the parking lot and quickly don their turnout gear before heading off, sirens wailing.
The kids conclude their visit with the first responders with some facetime with the District of West Vancouver’s bylaw staff. Maybe not the strongest finish for the tour after the kids have been putting out fires and seeing a man taken down by the K9 unit, but the uniformed officers do hold the kids’ attention as they tell them about the 3,700 calls they get each year for everything from parking violations to, in one case, a complaint about bees trespassing in someone’s yard.
It’s all good fun but there are larger goals in play here. The kids are part of the Neonology Camp – an annual excursion run through the North Shore Multicultural Society, mixing kids of various ages and backgrounds to promote cross-cultural understanding and leadership.
“The idea is to give the kids the training they’ll need so they can be leaders and ambassadors in their community and schools,” said Daniela Cohen, youth team leader. “It’s a chance for people newly arrived to Canada to meet people who have been here for a long time. People who were born here get to learn what it’s like to be a newcomer.”
West Vancouver police were eager to be involved in the camp because that kind of interaction helps form bonds with new immigrant families, many of whom have come from places were the police are feared, Wood said.
The inclusion of the Squamish Nation was deliberate, as adjusting to life in a new country often means new immigrants don’t have the time or wherewithal to gain an understanding of First Nations culture.
“For people coming here, it’s ‘How do I learn English? How do I get a job? How do I get my kids in school? Where is the hospital?” Cohen said. “Pieces around Canadian culture come later. … It’s really important to acknowledge First Nations as a vital part of our communities where we live in terms of the history that’s happened but also that they’re still here now. This is still their land.”
Outside the day spent with West Vancouver’s civic services, many of Neonology’s activities and discussions focus on racism and stereotyping, something the kids know about first hand.
During the final night of the camp, they did an overnight at Crescent Beach where they had a bonfire and sat telling their personal stories.
“I think that overnight was the point we got really close to each other, like a family,” said Parnian Taheri, 18, who moved here from Iran four years ago.
Taheri, who has a very outgoing personality, said it’s in her nature to “brush off” hurtful comments, but still find a way to confront them. When she was facing racist bullying in school, she took it up with a school counsellor, “and it went away – kind of,” she said.
For others though, it’s much harder, she acknowledged.
“I heard that it hurt them mentally and they didn’t have the courage to talk to their counsellor, and how it would be helpful if their classmates or a friend would go up to them and say to them ‘Be strong,’” she said. “Being a bystander makes these things get worse.”
Perhaps not realizing the common theme that brought the campers together, their bus driver made a joke targeting Asians in front of the kids.
“He said Asians can’t open the windows. It’s like they haven’t had any buses in their country,” Taheri said. “I mean, so many of us are Asian. That was a really rude comment in my opinion.”
The campers pulled together and confronted the driver.
“We weren’t disrespectful or anything, but we said ‘That’s not nice to say. So many of us are Asian. Even though we’re pretty sure you meant it in a joking way, that’s not nice to see. Other people may get hurt by your comment,” she said.
Regrettable as the racist jokes are, the response is exactly the kind of thing Cohen said she hopes the Neonology camp produces from its alumni.
And a stereotype doesn’t even have to be a negative one to have a negative impact on a person, notes 15-year-old Joey Liu, who came to Canada from China a year ago.
“I am an Asian and like a ‘typical Asian girl,’ I do really good in math and I get good grades. That seems like what I’m supposed to be. Well, sometimes if I don’t do that, people will judge me. I feel pretty bad about it,” she said.
Liu said she understands there is a natural tendency for people to “categorize” people based on their looks or background and begin making assumptions but she tries to follow the advice she offers to other kids:
“Be yourself. Be your true self. Ignore the others. This is my life. Who is going to judge?” she said.
Liu said she emerged from the camp more confident to speak up for herself and others.
The camp is now finished for the summer but the kids still have one more activity. They have to now work together to come up with a community project that somehow applies what they’ve learned.
“The idea isn’t that we learn these skills, we talk about these ideas and then we go home. We want them to put it into action so that it has a spinoff effect,” Cohen said.
