How It Began

A few months ago in English class my teacher proposed the project of a creative non friction essay on a controversial social issue, with an ulterior idea to take action towards a topic of your choice. After much debate over which topic to choose I went to Linda Gomez, a teacher in the nursing program at Selkirk College, and asked for some help with narrowing down my topic search. We discussed a certain social service called harm reduction. Not understanding this topic, I took it upon myself to do some research and found out that harm reduction refers to a range of public health policies designed to reduce the harmful consequences associated with recreational drug use and other high risk activities. With that in mind the project began, and after many hours of work and data collection I had narrowed my topic to Safe Injection Sites in Vancouver’s Downtown East side. Thus the plan for action began. It consists of a two part action plan starting in Nelson , BC as a test run for the major trip to Vancouver, BC. Both Nelson and Vancouver are troubled regions of Canada with regards to drug addiction. My plan is to better understand the services provided here in the Kootenay region and eventually in British Columbia’s largest harm reduction site.