[Witness spoke in Mi'kmaq and provided the following text:]
Pjila’si. We’ltasi pe’jitiy’oq.
[Witness provided the following translation:]
Welcome. Nice for you all to come.
[English]
Welcome. It's so nice to see you all.
My name is Jennifer Jesty, and I am the first indigenous woman to become a member of the Nova Scotia firefighters association, as well as the first indigenous woman to become an advanced care paramedic in the province of Nova Scotia.
Currently, I am the emergency resiliency manager for the Union of Nova Scotia Mi'kmaq.
There are 4,127 people registered to receive alerts across our five Cape Breton indigenous communities, for which I created our very own Unama'ki emergency alert system. We have sent 183 alerts since its inception in September 2020. We have reunited 67 young people with their families because of the alerts. Some 96% of people were reunited with their families within the first hour of sending the alert.
Utilizing the Everbridge platform, our Unama'ki emergency alert system has been wildly successful. Every time we send a noteworthy alert, several more people subscribe.
In August 2022, there was a man who had a French accent and a white beard, and was driving a grey car. This person approached a young, indigenous female store clerk and attempted to lure her into the sex trade. He made promises of riches and asked her to get her friends to come with him as well. She immediately called the police and the man fled.
The chief of the community where this took place immediately called me and asked me to send out the alert. For all we knew, he could have been headed to one of our other communities. Because we own and operate this alert system, we did not need to go through any red tape, we did not need the say-so from authorities and we did not need to wait one more minute. I sent the alert within minutes of this event taking place, and I was able to send it to all five communities at once. The alert was sent to the over 3,000 subscribers we had at that time. Some of them took screen captures of the alert and posted it on their socials, which meant it reached far more than those who were actually registered. After that alert was sent, another 150 people subscribed to our alert system.
Because this system was designed by us, for us, we were able to create our own protocols around when, how and why an alert should or shouldn't be sent. The collaboration between our five community chiefs and me allowed us to use this system in a manner that works best for us. There has not been one single request for an alert that has been denied, and every single alert has been sent out within minutes of receiving the information.
The Everbridge platform gives us the ability to tailor the delivery of the message. Once the message has been typed out, with the press of one button, it will be sent to all forms of communication at once. It will text a cellphone, call a cellphone, send an email and, most importantly, call a land line. There are still several of our elders who have a land line and no other form of communication. In some areas, there is no service or very little cell service, which makes the land line option that much more important.
I was able to work with Everbridge to make some adjustments. We are now able to send just a text and an email. The second option is what we call “all paths”, which means it will then ring a land line.
Waking an elder in the middle of the night with a land line call is now reserved for immediate threats to life and safety only. We can choose to not wake people if it's something that does not directly affect them or that they can do nothing about.
Currently, the chief and two other staff in each community have been trained and have access to send the alerts alongside me. I was worried that the username and password for each community might fall into the wrong hands, so it's been designed that the only thing the username and password will allow you to do is send a message. It will not give access to the sensitive data that is within the system. As the administrator, I am the only person who can see, change or update that information.
This alert system started out as a simple little idea in my mind. I had no idea it was going to take on a life of its own. People continue to subscribe, even now, after four years. We often send out media campaigns to remind people to register or update their information.
Now, our alert system is getting nationwide attention. When there is something going on within communities, people are quick to take to social media, asking, “Where's the alert?”
That's a sure sign, in a community, that members support, approve of and rely on our alert system for critical information that directly affects their safety.
In my perfect world, I would love to take this alert system to every single indigenous community in this entire country. Would it save lives? I believe it already has.
Thank you.