Archive for 2012

By Dr. Gira Bhatt, Principal Investigator / Project Director for Acting Together: Community-University Research Alliance (CURA) and Kwantlen Psychology faculty member

Sarah Jackson, web editor for Acting Together-CURA and Kwantlen journalism student, spent ten weeks interning for MSNBC in New York.

Around 11 a.m., an email from an MSNBC producer would go out to two dozen or so newsmakers with a “rundown,” a detailed plan for the nightly political news show Hardball with Chris Matthews.

Sarah Jackson, a student researcher with the Acting Together-Community-University Research Alliance (CURA) project and an undergraduate journalism student at Kwantlen Polytechnic University, would get a glimpse of what her internship day would be like.

Sarah had already learned that people working in the happening city of New York rarely take lunch breaks. She would now be swept away in the adrenaline-driven hours at MSNBC, along with her supervisor Moshe Arenstein, the line producer for Hardball, and her colleagues. Read the rest of this entry »

The Acting Together project has all of the riveting details a good story would require: crime-fighting, exploration, discovery and teamwork. It’s no surprise, then, that the story of the project’s successes would be rippling throughout Canada.

The project’s funder The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) has taken note, choosing to highlight the project in its 2010-11 annual report (page 9) and on its website.

In both, Sergeant Shinder Kirk, of the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit – Gang Task Force, relates the value he sees in the Acting Together SSHRC-CURA project.

“This research gives us the academic foundation we need to build our prevention, intervention and enforcement strategies. This is the future of law enforcement when it comes to gangs and gang violence,” said Sgt. Kirk.

To read SSHRC’s story “Research partnership takes unique approach to reducing youth gang violence”, click here.

Members of the Acting Together SSHRC-CURA team met with NDP public safety critic and Surrey North MP Jasbir Sandhu (second from right) on Mar. 16.

The Acting Together SSHRC-CURA team recently welcomed a special visitor to its CURA Centre at Kwantlen Polytechnic University.

NDP public safety critic and Surrey North MP Jasbir Sandhu visited the office on Mar. 16 to greet the team and learn more about AT-CURA’s gang prevention project, after staff had extended an invitation during a recent event.

Sandhu was attentive and genuinely concerned about the youth violence and youth gang involvement issues that AT-CURA is working to reduce through its research and community collaboration, said Dr. Gira Bhatt, the project’s principal investigator and project director.

“He said, ‘I’m not here as a politician but as a community member, and I just want to share the kind of work you’re doing,’” said Bhatt. Read the rest of this entry »

Acting Together will be featured in Kwantlen's upcoming Celebration of Research on April 5.

One of Surrey’s leading gang prevention initiatives, Acting Together, will be featured in an upcoming Kwantlen Polytechnic University event aiming to spread the word about the exciting research being done at the school.

The Celebration of Research will open with a keynote address from the Acting Together SSHRC-CURA (AT-CURA) project’s director and principal investigator Dr. Gira Bhatt.

The presentation will give an overview of the project’s greatest achievements so far, its research methods and its ongoing work with community partners to help shape policies and programs related to youth violence prevention. Read the rest of this entry »

As gang violence in B.C. continues to surge, possible links between youth alienation and gang recruitment are being explored by Acting Together SSHRC-CURA (AT-CURA) researcher Indira Prahst.

Prahst, an AT-CURA co-investigator, shared some of her discoveries in a talk entitled “Seduced into Gangs: Youth and Alienation” at Langara College on Jan. 18.

Her presentation explored the causes for violence and joining gangs, and the role youth alienation plays in these issues. It was based on her work for one of AT-CURA’s qualitative studies which are intended to help shape future youth violence prevention efforts in B.C.

Prahst is also the chair for the Department of Sociology & Anthropology at Langara College.