Today is a special day in Kelowna, as members of the Kelowna RCMP unveiled the design of their new Challenge Coin to the indigenous students who helped create it.
The Challenge Coin Project is a collaboration between Kelowna RCMP and the learning program called Land Based Love.
One of the teachers in the Land Based Learning program, Kevin Kaiser says that the program helps Indigenous youth learn about their culture and be proud of their roots.
The students were all challenged to design a coin that is rooted in Indigenous culture and submitted their creations to Const. Mike Della-Paolera and Supt. Kara Triance in hopes of being chosen for the coin.
During the unveiling event at Okanagan Middle School June 28, Della-Paolera and Triance revealed that grade 8 student, Jonah Doyle’s design was the winner.
Doyle said that the design was inspired by the Four Food Chiefs and a view from Knox Mountain.
“There’s the Salmon, and the Saskatoon Berry and Bear and Bitterroot and the bridge and the mountains,” said Doyle.
According to a Kelowna RCMP press release the history of the Challenge Coin “dates back to the first World War when a United States lieutenant in the Army Air Corps gave his fellow pilots a small solid-bronze medallion with the squadron’s insignia. The pilots would fly with the medallions in their pockets for safekeeping and good luck.”
That history has been added to over the years and now, one side of the coin has the RCMP emblem and the other represents the community they work in.
“A Challenge Coin is a coin that we have in the department that we use as a gift, we use it to gift to other departments who visit our community or when we go to other communities and visit, we gift it to them,” said Const. Della-Paolera.
Const. Della-Paolera worked with Kaiser and another Land Based Learning Program instructor Kyla Shields to get to know the students and design the coin.
The collaborative project is also meant to help Indigenous youth and local RCMP members forge a more positive relationship.
“I used to run the other way when I saw the police, I grew up, up north and that’s the way it was,” said Kaiser.
The first 100 coins have been created and the Land Based Learning students are the first to receive them.
“Indigenous youth and our youth in Canada are our future generations, I am thrilled to be working with them, learning with them and hearing their perspective on how we need to move forward and how they embrace some of the challenges that my generation did poorly in,” said Supt. Triance
Now that the first of the coins have been handed out, the coins will be shared more widely as they are given out to other RCMP members.