REDUCING HARM
Community rallies behind sharps container project
Community rallies behind sharps container project.
Angela Rudderham’s class project has helped fill a service gap in her hometown.
The self-described “natural helper” saw a need for harm reduction several years ago after finding discarded needles at Northside area beaches and parks.
“I noticed there was no sharps kiosks or anything (in the way) harm reduction in North Sydney, and a lot of people had no idea what harm reduction really was,” said the Bachelor of Arts community studies student at Cape Breton University.
“Harm reduction is as simple as putting a Band-Aid on your finger.”
Rudderham appeared on news programs in 2015, when she purchased stick-proof gloves and started cleaning up unwanted needles at Lochman’s Beach in Sydney Mines as a random act of kindness.
She has continued to pick up needles at the beach ever since.
“I’m usually out every morning at 5:30 a.m. and it would be 15 or 16 needles, cookers — everything you could think of that was related to drug addiction and drug usage,” she said.
“I had a lot of people not understand why I was doing it. They were just really negative about the whole harm reduction aspect, (so after) sitting down and talking with the residents they realized how beneficial harm reduction was.”
Following up on her harm reduction efforts, Rudderham noticed that there was no publicly housed sharps container available in North Sydney.
As part of her university program, Rudderham was asked to create and promote a charity in an effort to impart fundraising skills.
Falling back on her volunteer experience, Rudderham sought to raise $1,600 or roughly half of the cost of purchasing a large sharps bin.
Rudderham raised the needed amount in a week-and-a-half with the help of private citizens and community partners that included the Rotary Club of North Sydney, the Kiwanis Ceilidh Golden K and the Knights of Columbus.
The remaining cost was funded through Rising Tide project allocations awarded by the Northside Rising initiative.
Northside Rising is in turn part of Inspiring Communities, a provincial initiative supported by eight social policy departments in Nova Scotia to build collaborative relationships for social change.
The sharps container can now be accessed anytime outside the North Sydney Community Food Bank.
“It was an excellent learning experience,” said Rudderham. “The program that Cape Breton University offers is amazing. I’ve learned so much and I’ve been exposed to so many community partners and I’ve made a lot of contacts through what I’m doing.”
As part of her work, Rudderham had a sharps container in Sydney Mines relocated to a private space at Community CARES Youth Outreach.
Another small sharps container is also in place at Lochman’s Beach in Sydney Mines.
“Anybody can use it,” Rudderham said of the large bin. “Say if you’re diabetic you can use this sharps container, you don’t have to have a drug addiction or anything like that.”
The Ally Centre of Cape Breton will now be responsible to emptying and maintaining the drop-off bin. The total cost of the disposal unit was $3,000.
Rudderham thanked community groups for their help, adding that the project wouldn’t have been possible without their support.