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October 19, 2009 The Circles of Support and Accountability (COSA) October 19 took the first step towards incorporation as a registered charitable organization. “Governments tend to want to deal with legally recognized organizations so we decided to incorporate under the non profit societies act,” said Otto Driedger who was named Chairman of the organization at the Monday night meeting. Other officers will be appointed by the new board of directors that includes Reverend Denise Doerksen of St. James Anglican Church Moose Jaw, Peter Peters and Hirsch Greenberg from Regina. A steering committee has been guiding the organization and will continue but will now report to the board of directors, said committee member Bert Pitzel of the Regina Roman Catholic Archdiocese. It is an ecumenical group with representatives form the Anglican, Evangelical Lutheran, Mennonite, Salvation Army and United Churches, the parole board, probation services, Regina Police Service and the RCMP. Social Services and Mental Health services of the provincial government are also involved but not on the steering committee. With the organizational meeting out of the way an application for registration will now be made to the provincial government and following that an application for recognition as a charitable organization will be made to the federal government. Incorporation as a non-profit and recognition as a charitable organization will open the opportunity for federal grants as well the ability to accept donations and provide tax receipts. “Up to now we’ve been all volunteers and did not have an office person,” said Driedger. The Anglican Church has provided administrative services for their finances. “We decided how to spend our money and they administered it for us. It’s worked very well, but in the long run we expect to administer our own finances.” The Circles of Support and Accountability has a 9 year history in Saskatchewan and has worked with 14 sexual offenders, its primary purpose. There are several COSA organizations across Canada but no national organization. The movement began in Hamilton, Ontario about 14 years ago in a downtown Mennonite Church. Its main purpose is to help and support sexual offenders to accept responsibility for their actions and to re-integrate successfully into society after release from prison. “We have a good success rate,” said Driedger, “there has been only one case where one of the 14 we’ve worked with has re-offended. A few others breached their release conditions but only one actually re-offended.” The group is now providing support for 8 offenders. Frank Flegel |
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