Nanaimo and District Crime Stoppers has received an award for multilingual messaging from Crime Stoppers International.
The organization was recognized at the 38th annual Crime Stoppers International Conference, held recently in Panama City, Panama, with the Media Radio Awards, Best Crime of the Week for communities with populations up to 300,000 category for multilingual broadcasting.
The award recognizes a joint pilot project started in Oct. 2016 between Vancouver Island University’s faculty of international education, CHLY Radio and Nanaimo and District Crime Stoppers, in which international students broadcast Crime Stoppers public service announcements in their native languages to reach VIU’s international student population.
“This award is an amazing accomplishment for our program,” Const. Gary O’Brien, Nanaimo Crime Stoppers coordinator said in an email to the News Bulletin. “Firstly, we were so honoured to be able to partner with CHLY radio, Vancouver Island University and their international students program. Bringing five languages together into one Crime of the Week was no easy task.”
Nanaimo was selected from submissions made from hundreds of Crime Stoppers programs in 40 countries.
“That in itself was amazing to think our idea was considered the best out of all the other submissions,” O’Brien said. “Lastly, it about thinking outside the box and that is why the Nanaimo and District Crime Stoppers program is considered one of the best in the province. We are continually focusing on making connections, increasing our brand and doing what we can to keep criminals in check.”
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