A Winnipeg security firm has put an Indigenous community ambassador in a downtown Dollarama store, as companies and advocates seek new ways to build bridges and prevent trouble.
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A Winnipeg security firm has put an Indigenous community ambassador in a downtown Dollarama store, as companies and advocates seek new ways to build bridges and prevent trouble.
A Winnipeg security firm has put an Indigenous community ambassador in a downtown Dollarama store, as companies and advocates seek new ways to build bridges and prevent trouble.
Impact Security owner Ron D’Errico said he is planning to expand the new program to additional retailers and communities, and hire up to 20 more ambassadors to work alongside his company’s security guards.
“Security companies need to be better. That’s just the nature of this industry,” he said. “We’re far gone from the days where we hire a guy to sit in a store or watch an empty building. We’re at an age now where people need to understand cultural sensitivity, roots of the problems, layers of why crimes happen and how to deal with challenges such as confrontation.”
D’Errico said the program is the first of its kind in Manitoba. It stems from a Feb. 28 incident where an Impact Security guard allegedly used brass knuckles while assaulting an Indigenous man at the Dollarama at 295 Portage Ave.
The man was beaten after he allegedly assaulted the guard when he was stopped for shoplifting. Both were charged.
Impact Security hired community advocate Viv Ketchum as an ambassador about four weeks ago.
“We wanted to make sure that people felt when they come into a department store or a retailer that our goal was to eliminate the uncomfortability of being (racially) profiled, and to have someone with empathy, cultural awareness on the company’s first line of representation,” D’Errico said.
“We have less shoplifters in the store, less violent issues in the store, and I see people coming in and they’re greeting each other with respect, affection, camaraderieship.”
Many newcomers work as security guards in Manitoba. Impact’s ambassador program aims to educate and foster relationships between people from different backgrounds or communities.
“People who are newcomers to Canada don’t understand the story of the Indigenous people. They are not taught that properly,” D’Errico said.
Ketchum attended a rally outside the Dollarama store after a witness shared video on social media of the guard assaulting the alleged shoplifter Feb. 28.
Source: Read the original article on www.winnipegfreepress.com
