Transition Nelson Society announced this week that the Nelson Good Neighbour Program will launch this spring. In March, there will be a mediation training course to support this program through Selkirk College.
This program is a community-based initiative created by Transition Nelson Society and the Mir Centre for Peace at Selkirk College. Its purpose is to strengthen our social fabric and reduce demand on municipal resources. Volunteer mediators will be available to help neighbours resolve disputes and build relationships in an empowering, confidential, and non-adversarial setting. The program also aims to highlight the ways that neighbourhood helps individuals to recognize and value each other’s needs.
The program is recruiting 16 volunteers to take the initial three-day training March 30 to April 1 at no charge.
There will be a minimum commitment to provide at least one mediation and attend one meeting per month when required, for at least one year. Individuals will be supported with a mentor accompanying them on their first call out, and work in teams of two, as well as attend debrief sessions.
Trainees will participate in designing the logistics of the program and respond to requests for mediation from fellow Nelsonites. Community members will be invited to contact the program for assistance, or they may be referred by city agencies or other organizations.
The idea for this program came from another Transition Nelson initiative, the Nelson Cross-Sector Table. This monthly table brings together leaders from different sectors in Nelson, including the social, local government, business, environmental, education, and health sectors. At one of the meetings, it came up that there are limited resources for enforcement of bylaw complaints, at times becoming a stumbling block to addressing perceived community needs like allowing back-yard chickens. A community mediation program came up as a way to diminish demand on city resources as well as promote a culture of collaboration.
Nelson city council expressed unanimous support for the program at its November meeting. Nelson chief of police Wayne Holland has been a strong advocate for this program since it was first presented to him. His first response was: “This is community policing at its finest, wherein the citizens within a community identify and resolve their issues with a minimum of intervention from government officials.”
“We conceive of the program as providing a process for all parties’ needs to be met, rather than something adversarial,” said Randy Janzen, chair of the Mir Centre for Peace.
For more information about the program or to download an application for the training, would-be mediators must go to transitionnelson.org. Deadline for applications is February 3.