About 650 people attended a major two-day Aboriginal youth anti-gang conference this week — the first of its kind in Saskatoon.
The 10,000 Healing Steps conference was hosted by STR8 UP and featured a number of prominent keynote speakers in policing, social services and gang-prevention research.
STR8 UP founder Father Andre Poilievre says the organization has come a long way over the last few years.
“We started off with two and then we ended up with over 200 members leaving the gangs or are helping them, and now we have about 130 STR8 UP members,” he says. “So it’s big, in that sense, for a city of this size.”
Poilievre adds one of the goals of the conference was to highlight some of the positive contributions ex-gang members are making in the community in spite of the obstacles they have faced in the past.
“By the time of 8, 10, 12-years old, we can probably tell who’s going to become a gang member rather than being an altar boy. It’s very simple who will go to jail and who will go to university.”
He says STR8 UP won’t necessarily make any money off the conference but should break even once costs are taken into account.
The STR8 UP founder adds they got the idea to host the conference after visiting a similar anti-gang organization in Los Angeles called Homeboys.
The conference wound up Thursday afternoon.