For the last three years, CeaseFire Halifax has been working to curb violence, but its future is in jeopardy. That’s because the program has been operating on $2 million in federal funding from the National Crime Prevention Strategy’s Youth Gang Prevention Fund, money that is set to run out in June.
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Yvonne Atwell is the executive director of the Community Justice Society, which operates CeaseFire. She said the program was a pilot project and only eligible to receive money under the federal fund one time, which has left CeaseFire now looking at other options.
Atwell said they’ve been working with their partners in the community to find financial assistance, but so far haven’t been able to secure funding.
“The problem is lack of funding. So, when your funders say, I support you, I support you, but no dollars come with it, so sometimes it’s like what does that mean?” she said.
CeaseFire originally started in Chicago in 2000 and follows the Cure Violence Health Model, which considers violence to be an epidemic and a public health concern.
In 2011, there were 19 homicides and 75 shootings in the Halifax Regional Municipality, which left officials looking for new ways to tackle gun-violence, according to police statistics. Three years later, Halifax officially became the first Canadian city to implement CeaseFire in 2014 as part of a pilot project.
The program focuses on serving the African Nova Scotian community and works with young people between the ages of 16 and 25, most of whom are male and involved in criminal activity. Staff, or violence interrupters as they’re called, are from the communities they serve and sometimes have had their own conflicts with the law, which CeaseFire says gives them credibility and allows them to better relate to youth.
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Members of CeaseFire are active in the community and work to introduce peaceful resolutions and avoid violence. Atwell said she’s concerned about what may happen if the program abruptly ends in a few months.
“I don’t know what would happen. I suspect that things may go back the way they were in 2009, 2010, because the community will think, who cares.”
Although it’s hard to measure the success of this type of program, CeaseFire says they’ve had more than 150 meditations or interventions within the community since the program started.
“We’ve assisted more than 90 young people to drop their guns, to get out of the lifestyle, to be able to find some resources for them,” Atwell tells Global News.
Funding extension requested
Halifax Mayor Mike Savage said he’s been working with Nova Scotia Justice Minister Diana Whalen to try and secure more federal funding, but so far hasn’t been able to get any commitment.
“We had asked for an extension of the program, an indefinite one and they said no,” said Savage.
“We’ve seen this with federal programs before, where they fund a program and then they turn out to be really successful and then they drop them.”
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Although they’ve said no to an indefinite extension, Savage is now working to get the federal government to agree to a six month, $240,000 extension of the program in order to give the municipality time to look at other options.
Atwell said she’s hoping for a favourable response.
“I’m very passionate about it because I was there from the beginning, helped write the proposal. I thought the CeaseFire model was very exciting and we know it works in other places around the world,” said Atwell.
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“I don’t know who would pick up the work and do it in the way we’re doing it.”