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8- The Oakville Beaver Weekend, Saturday June 7, 2008 www.oakvillebeaver.com Emergency services reach out to new Canadians By David Lea OAKVILLE BEAVER STAFF The day was filled with fun, but the message was serious for new Canadians who attended Halton's third annual Emergency Services Open House. Part of the ESINC (Emergency Services Introduction for New Canadians) program, the open house, held at the Halton Regional Police Headquarters in Oakville, gave hundreds of local English-as-a Second-Language (ESL) students the opportunity to interact with police, fire and EMS personnel in an effort to help the newcomers understand what to do in the event of an emergency. "We've bused in all the ESL students and their families, so there's about 450 people that will be here today. We've got display booths from all different aspects of police, fire and EMS in order to provide them with information, safety information, community information, so they have resources to go to," said Halton Regional Police Sgt. Chantal Verrier. "We also want them to be able to relate to us on a human level." Understanding that the people who work for emergency services in Canada are approachable is extremely important for new Canadians. In many of their coun- tries of origin, authorities in uniform were best avoided. "A lot of them had questions this morning about when they can call on us to assist them," said Halton Regional Police Diversity Officer Lori Dunne-Babin. "Some of them have mentioned that in their countries the police weren't helpful or friendly, but bullied them and beat them up. One of the ladies was saying this morning that you never called on the police, never looked at them on the street or spoke to them and that's what we're trying to change with this." Meanwhile, over at the Oakville Fire Department booth, the department's Public Education Officer, Michael Harrison, was busy giving fire safety information to interested parties. "We're focusing on smoke alarms, safety in the home and we're trying to get inroads within the multicultural community, so we brought some pamphlets that are geared towards safe cooking, smoke alarms, carbon monoxide detectors," he said. "We constantly have to be putting these messages out there for new people." While inside the tone was all about education, outside it was all about fun as the ESL students got a chance to view and even climb into a variety of police, fire and EMS vehicles set up in a nearby parking lot. DAVID LEA / OAKVILLE BEAVER TAKE A SEAT: Mohammed Abul Hamid mounts a police motorcycle with an assist from Halton Regional Police Constables Deron Ellsworth and George Whitehouse. Particularly popular was the loved being in the cars and fire police motorcycle, which more than truck." one newcomer had the opportunity Some ESL students also got to to mount while friends and family test the microphone and siren of a took their picture. police car, while others with more "It's very great," said Ji-eun Yun, mechanical interests were allowed to originally from Korea. look under the hood to see just what "I have a two year old and she makes a police cruiser so fast. The purpose of the day was not lost on Mohammed Abul Hamid, originally from Bangladesh, who spoke about its importance. "They are giving us education on the ambulance, police and fire service. We need to have the knowledge," he said. "They are assisting us in this. It's very good, I welcome this." The day finished with a barbecue for all those present as well as a graduation ceremony for new Canadians who had completed an Enhanced Language Training Community Policing course for newcomers who have a background in policing. "If they want to continue in their career here in law enforcement or security, they're going to run into some obstacles, one of them being language, cultural norms and things like that," said Verrier. "So, they go through a 17-week program where they learn English on the level of presentations, they learn criminal law, Canadian law, things like that, to give them a few more tools and resources for when they do apply to a police service." This program, which was initiated by the Halton Multicultural Council and supported by the Halton Regional Police Service, yielded seven graduates this year from such countries as Sweden, Columbia, France, Zimbabwe, China and Slovakia. Do you or anyone in your family suffer from asthma or allergies? 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