Pounding the pavement to clean up the street

As the father of two students at Niji Mahkwa School, Willie Sinclair has a vested interest in keeping a buffer between the Flora Avenue school and the sex-trade workers who frequent the area.

That’s why he became a volunteer parent monitor for Biindigen, a project launched three years ago by Mount Carmel Clinic’s Sage House to reduce the visibility of the sex-trade around several North End schools. The monitors recently won the Mayor’s Volunteer Service Award in the public safety category.

“I love being around kids,” said Sinclair, who has been a monitor outside Niki Mahkwa for two years. “I’m always looking out for their safety.”

Before school, during the lunch hour and after dismissal, Sinclair walks between Selkirk and Dufferin avenues and McGregor and Salter streets.

“I’m a visual comfort for kids coming to and from school. We want no problems with adults bothering kids,” Sinclair said. “We’re a deterrent for (sex-trade workers) not to work during school hours.”

Sinclair encounters one or two “street-walkers” a day, and is on a first-name basis with many of them. One day last week, Sinclair was standing in front of the school with the vice-principal while a john picked up a woman.

The level of sex-trade traffic in the area has dropped sharply in the past two years, according to Sinclair.

“The program has helped quite a bit. People are starting to see what the program is doing for the school. It’s important that the community sees what we do,” Sinclair said.

Gloria Enns, the program manager at Sage House, said it’s vital to keep the sex trade away from schools because some of the johns may be child predators.

While the parent monitors focus on looking out for the children as they walk to school, Sage House’s two outreach workers talk directly to the women on the street.

“Both complement each other and make the neighbourhood safer,” Enns said. “The women out there usually react very positively if they’re reminded in a positive way.

“They understand. Many of them are mothers too, and they don’t want to put children at risk. Sometimes it’s a matter of reminding them what time of day it is.”

The program has the full support of the principals at Niji Mahkwa, William Whyte, David Livingstone, King Edward and Strathcona schools, Enns said.

One of the biggest challenges Biindigen faces is finding enough parent volunteers to cover all the shifts. At times the program has had as many as 15 monitors, but it is now down to only six.

“We’ve had some difficulty recruiting volunteers,” said Bev Wahl, the principal at David Livingstone School.

Wahl said the school has been without a monitor for a few months. She added that the spring is an important time to have monitors because of an increase in sex-trade activity as the weather improves.

“It does make a difference in creating an atmosphere of safety for the children walking to and from school. I believe it’s made an impact,” Wahl said.

While the outreach workers do encourage the women they encounter to come to Sage House for crisis intervention services, the goal of Biindigen is primarily to keep the children away from criminal activity.

“It’s more of a prevention program,” Sinclair said “We’re not out to cause trouble, just to prevent kids from being harmed.”