Ninu Kang and Rubina Mudhar joined Sikh leadership, youth, police, and academic experts for a two-day residential summit at the RCMP training facility in Chilliwack on July 7th and 8th. Eleven Gurdwaras and police officers of all eight municipalities from across the Lower Mainland assembled to share, reflect, learn and create an action plan to develop effective youth programs in their respective agencies. This was a follow-up to the 2013 summit which started us all on the way to understanding and implementing evidence-based prevention programs that would disrupt the path to youth gang violence and involvement.Sgt. Baltej Dhillon opened the summit by sharing with the audience that the focus of this summit would be on the strengths, resources and willingness of community leaders and front line service agency workers to become equal partners with the police. The two days consisted of key notes from RCMP senior officials, a presentation on research findings from Kwantlen Polytechnic University, and group discussions on best practice programs.The youth in attendance eagerly participated and provided input to the evolving action plan. The summit provided an opportunity for temple leaders and the police to review their own joint action plans, and to confirm their commitment to prevention programming as a means to address the issue of youth and gang violence.
