SEEING THE PROBLEMS, FINDING THE ANSWERS

For Connie Seward and Lance Point, the problems of the world have been
hitting a little too close to home.

The sex trade has been moving increasingly toward Centre Street on the
Snuneymuxw Indian Reserve, and the result is discarded condoms and other
evidence that they're seeing every day.

"Straight down the road is the youth centre," says Point. "That's where the
kids go every day."

The pair began to look more closely at the situation, and the more they
looked the more disturbing the picture became.

Their research has involved ride-alongs with the RCMP and the needle
exchange program, and even interviews with sex trade workers.

The result is ambitious: a video outlining the problems with the sex and
drug trade in Nanaimo and a first-ever youth conference on these and other
subjects.

The conference, Protect Our Future, will focus on how the drug and sex
trade culture is encroaching on the community and will also touch upon answers.

It will coincide with an awareness week focussing on sexually exploited youth.

Seward, Point and two other young adults, Harriet Frenchie and Brian
Thomas, came up with the idea for the conference and the video as part of
the Keepers of our Culture youth group at Snuneymuxw First Nation.

Supervisor Dallas Brock has nothing but praise for their efforts.

"They had an idea and wanted to make sure the community knows about it,"
she says.

Part and parcel of the ideas are the solutions that will be offered at the
conference.

"There has to be solutions there," Brock says. "A lot of people they talked
to, including sex trade workers, stated what was needed and what Nanaimo
doesn't have compared to centres like Vancouver, Victoria and Kelowna that
are doing more about the problem."

But equally important will be educating the community about the scope of
the problem: Nanaimo's so-called heroin "shooting galleries" and even the
instance of a nine-year-old girl being approached to carry drugs, Brock says.

"It's just so nuts and the kids are so young and they're seeing what's
happening out there," Point says.

The conference will take place at the Qwam Qwum Stalicut school March 2.
Registration forms are available at area schools. Seating is limited.

Seward has high hopes for the outcome.

"I just hope it opens lots of doors and makes people more aware," she says.