Some 150 young people graduated from the TPS Youth In Policing Initiative program Friday at a ceremony at police headquarters. They learned about policing and why it matters along with principles of respect and fairness. The participants come from designated Neighbourhood Improvement Areas and often struggle to find summer employment. They are paid $11.90 cents an hour for their participation in the eight week program. The ceremony heard from three valedictorians of the course, Hafsa Anwar, Jamilah Reeves and Aymun Kayka. In her remarks, Ms Reeves admitted she came into the program with biases. “That, however, changed in the last eight weeks,” she said. “The program freed me from those biases, opened my eyes and helped put me on a path to a bright future.” Reeves, who enters York University in the next two weeks, said the program was more than a summer job. She called it a “lifetime experience” that served as a stepping stone. “I learned how to effectively present myself in the company of others and also how to treat people with respect.”
