The Government of Canada has designated the week of May 28 to June 3 as "Victims and Survivors of Crime Week" and this year's theme is "Empowering Resilience".

Here in Moose Jaw, the Partners Against Violence group is working towards building a safer, stronger community through their efforts to bring together a variety of service agencies in hopes of realizing this goal.

Lori Lancaster, with PAC and the executive director of the Moose Jaw Transition House, said this year's theme is a very important message, explaining that PAC's goal is to raise the awareness of the impact that all violence has, even to those who might not be directly affected. She says its about realizing the lasting impact of violent crimes, impaired driving, and domestic abuse (just to name a few) on victims, their families and the community as a whole.

"Violence impacts the victims and their family members, it has such a tremendous impact on their lives that resonates for years and years and years, after a violent act has been committed," she described.

Partners Against Violence will be hosting two events to raise awareness this week made possible through grants from the Victims Fund administered through the Department of Justice Canada.

One event will be a luncheon with guest speaker Dwayne Hoeving.

Lancaster explained the significance of Hoeving's story, "The guest speaker is Dwayne Hoeving, father of Melissa Hoeving.  She was tragically killed in a vehicle accident in Regina, in 1998. She was struck by an impaired driver and was killed.  So the idea is that we really want to bring awareness to; 'What happens to families after such a tragedy, how it impacts our community?'"  She went on to add, "Because Saskatchewan still has very high rates of driving under impairment and the impact to the families as a result, both the victims' and the people that are driving, are so tremendous and we really want to get that message across."

The second is a classroom program that is aimed at school-age children. The "Kids Matter Program" will go into schools this week to work with students around personal safety and violence prevention.

For more information on Partners Against Violence and their upcoming events, you can click here

The Victims Fund grants are made available "to provinces, territories, and non-governmental organizations for programs and services that give victims and survivors of crime a more effective voice in the criminal justice system".  You can read more about the fund by clicking here

For more information on Victims Week, you can click here