There is a new, pink-clad team roaming Victoria’s downtown core with the sole purpose of keeping club and bar-goers safe.
The team is operated by Good Night Out Victoria, which is a satellite of the grassroots operation which began in Vancouver circa 2017.
“We do outreach, education and advocacy,” said Christine Richardson, Pilot Program Coordinator for Good Night Out.
“So in addition to doing workshops, primarily for nightlife establishments, we focus on preventing gender-based and sexualized violence—covering topics like consent and bystander intervention.”
Many bars, breweries, taprooms and restaurants have sought out Good Night Out’s services to have their staff as prepared as they can be should a situation arise that requires this type of knowledge and skill.
Good Night Out has now incorporated their street team in Victoria, who are out prowling the streets to provide a number of services to people out late at night.
The street team began in Vancouver as well as a City-funded project to enhance nightlife safety on Granville Street.
This is a new endeavour on the Victoria side though, having only just launched on June 14th, the street team prowls between 11 p.m. and 3 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays.
Below is a picture showing the rough perimeter the team will walk within:
“We’re essentially on the lookout for people who are leaving establishments to make sure they get home safe or supplying any harm reduction supplies—kind of stepping in and being someone’s friend,” Richardson told Victoria Buzz.
Right now, the thoroughly trained street team consists of a group of two who roam throughout the downtown core, making sure to check in and work with all the major nightlife establishments in Victoria.
If they see someone who they feel needs help, the team will approach them and check in, otherwise they wait until someone engages them, either looking for help or out of curiosity.
With them, the street team carries phone chargers, tissues, wet naps, water, naloxone and various other harm reduction supplies.
“One situation we encountered so far was a woman sitting in an alcove on her phone by herself and she was approached by two men,” explained Richardson.
“We could just kind of gauge that was an interaction she didn’t want, so we just stepped in and started talking to, I guess you could call them the aggressors, and as soon as she had a window to leave, she did.”
This pilot project is federally funded for one year by Women and Gender Equality Canada (WGEC), however Richardson says the hope is that Good Night Out can secure funding from the City of Victoria.
She added that this project aligns with the Strategic Plan and would fill the void of the defunct VicPD initiative, ‘Feet on the Street’, which was unsuccessful.
“Good Night Out could kind of… fill that gap of being a more approachable presence.”
The team is instantly recognizable in bright pink hoodies which read “HERE TO HELP” around a big heart design.
In addition to the street team and the workshops and consulting Good Night Out does in Victoria, they also have a free resource for people working in hospitality that provides the fundamentals of what they normally teach in-person.
Richardson says this was done in order to break down financial barriers businesses may face if they want their staff to be trained, and to allow for better accessibility for employees who may just want to learn this course on their own.
The online, module-based, interactive course is called TIPS and has two versions available: one for employers and one for employees.
