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Zone Watch volunteers ready to serve community

New volunteers with the Zone Watch program participated in a training academy to prepare them for new community role.

THUNDER BAY - Zahid Javed has lived in Thunder Bay for the past nine years and in that time he has seen and experienced some negative sides of the city, which is why he has decided to step up and try to give back.

“Being of a different colour, I have heard and faced a little bit of discrimination,” Javed said. “My house has been burglarized twice, I live in an area where drinking and driving is common, or domestic violence is common. Things like that motivate me to try and help the city and develop a better plan.”

Javed is one of 32 new members to the Thunder Bay Police Service Zone Watch program who participated in the training academy on Saturday.

The academy is required for all new volunteers of Zone Watch where participants learn about what the program does, the responsibilities of volunteers, criminal codes, police structure, privacy laws, and how to use the Zone Watch website.

According to Staff Sgt. of community service, Derek West, Zone Watch is meant to engage Thunder Bay Police Service officers directly with the community on issues of neighbourhood crime and community safety in order to develop solutions.  

“The big thing is it is an engagement tool to engage with our officers to bring concerns to their area of issues they have in their area and find a forum to be able to discuss that and look for solutions,” he said. “They do that with primary zone officers.”

There are more than 100 Zone Watch volunteers and West said the program is always actively recruiting because having more people involved allows the police service to engage more people and educate the community on the services it provides.

“Based on the recruitment we have done this year, we have increased the involvement from the community because we let them know that we want them to be involved and we hoped they would be with us to learn about what we do,” West said.

Javed said the Zone Watch Academy has already taught him about how the police service works and what his role will be as a volunteer, which he hopes will allow him to give back to his community.  

“Being in Zone Watch, you get to hear both good and bad about the city and you get to have a firsthand role in trying to bring ideas forward to the table and see if you can implement them and see what can be done about it,” he said.  

Anyone over the age of 18 is welcomed to volunteer with Zone Watch. Training academies are held every fall and spring.

“We are always looking for new recruits,” West said. “We want to make this program strong because we want to work in partnership with the community members. We are only as strong as what the community is involved with us and we want to be understanding of what is of importance and issues and concerns of different citizens in the area.”



Doug Diaczuk

About the Author: Doug Diaczuk

Doug Diaczuk is a reporter and award-winning author from Thunder Bay. He has a master’s degree in English from Lakehead University
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