Street survival skills

Resolving emotional trauma through survival skills

For the past 18 years, Kate’s Rest Foundation has been providing supportive housing to individuals who have experienced homelessness and who also may be facing health, social and legal services needs. The Foundation is now offering a survival skills training course to individuals as a means to help them feel more self-assured, to address some of the trauma and stress arising from their experiences, and to enable them to collaborate with others. The training will be led by Wellington resident Willem (Wim) Kerkhof. He was a member of the Royal Netherlands Marine Corps and is a retired Captain from the Canadian Armed Forces Reserves. He is a specialist in urban and wilderness survival skills and is a qualified “winter indoctrination” instructor. Mr. Kerkhof became involved with Kate’s Rest a few years ago when he built a sign for the facility on Big Island. During a conversation with Kate’s Rest founder Father Brian Hart, he learned that the Foundation was looking for someone to teach a survival course to the residents. He volunteered right away. “I have a lot of compassion for people who end up on the street. My father disappeared when I was 12. I got lost for a little while. I never ended up on the street, because I had good mentors, but I was close to it. I was also an alcoholic, but I’ve been sober for a very long time now. I also had to wean myself off prescription pain medication. So I have a little idea of what’s going on,” he said.

Mr. Kerkhof has made up 13 survival kits that will fit into a backpack, which will be given to the course participants. He calls these “bug-out bags”, and they will contain materials and supplies that will allow someone to survive for a minimum of 72 hours in the wilderness—or on the street. “The kits contain a lot of gadgets that will help them survive. There’s material to make their own sleeping bag, and I’ll give them instruction how to make a simple stove for cooking. There’s a head-mounted flashlight so they can use both hands at night, there’s a drinking straw that can purify water from anywhere, a pocket knife, socks, gloves, a thermos bottle, utensils and toothpaste,” he said.

The kits were funded by a generous donation of $300 for each backpack and contents, but Mr. Kerkhof has donated his fee as well, allowing him to provide additional equipment. He will be teaching the residents techniques for survival during a 10-week course at the Demorestville Town Hall, starting on June 11. The backpacks will be given to the participants on the first day and during subsequent weeks Mr. Kerkhof will impart his knowledge about survival skills. The idea behind this course is to alleviate one of the big fears of those who have experienced precarious housing: “What if I lose the place that I am staying in?” By providing them with the confidence that they could survive for three days on their own it is hoped that their stress levels will go down and they will be better able to collaborate with others. While the kits were initially formulated with winter survival in mind, Fr. Hart noted that participants should also be provided with training to survive in hotter conditions, and Mr. Kerkhof will incorporate this in the survival course. Mr. Kerkhof recommended that everyone should have their own “bug-out bag”, kept near the front door, in the event of an emergency that forces them to leave their home for an extended period. “If there’s a fire you may have to leave in a hurry, and you should keep your essential needs in there,” he said. For more information about Kate’s Rest, please visit katesrestfoundation.ca.