Year 3                                                  2000-2001

In 2000-2001, our third project unfolded.  The intention of this project was to utilize grass-roots participation rather than the typical approach to social issues whereby professionals use their expertise to inform affected target groups.  This project assumed the expertise of those directly affected and challenged “them” to tell “us” what would make a difference in our community to prevent suicide.  To this date our efforts had addressed how to recognize when someone is suicidal and what to do to help.   This project aimed to address why suicide happens and what can be done about those causes to reduce the incidence of suicide.

 Each participating group was involved in a 3-hour suicide awareness session/ project orientation session.  Groups were provided with general awareness information, statistics and resources.  They were then invited to develop 30- to 60-second video clips with a focus on suicide awareness, education, and prevention.  Criteria for the project were few, but paramount was that no act or tool of suicide be depicted.  Another criteria that would have been good to include is that no copyrighted music be used without permission first granted.

 When this phase of the project was completed, 17 submissions had been received from 9 groups.  These entries were compiled and edited into what we called, “Vive La Video.”  The compiled work was the feature presentation at a community evening hosting about 130 community members.  The video was shown on a huge screen in a college chapel.

 Following the community showing, which was attended by Cam Tait of the Edmonton Journal, requests for the video began to come in.  More than 50 copies of the video have been distributed to date, in every province from Ontario to British Columbia.  We have done local distribution to all high schools in our region, to public libraries within the County of Camrose, and to about a dozen human service agencies and organizations in the City of Camrose.  Suicide Prevention Services of Red Deer (who assisted with some of our education sessions) are using the video in some of their training sessions.  They expressed some amazement at the level of young male participants in the project, as this group is typically very difficult to get involved.

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