Safety expo brings community together

THE Blue Security Community Safety Campaign collaborated with other community safety structures to showcase their efforts to keep the community safe at a recent community safety expo. Taking place in Hillcrest on May 18, the initiative was also aimed for the community to mingle and get to know each other as neighbours.

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Speaking to the Highway Mail, Brett Beket of Blue Security said the event comes shortly after they launched the ‘It’s all good in the hood’ campaign.
“As part of this initiative, we are putting together technology, infrastructure and manpower to keep the community safe. We have also partnered with neighbourhood watches and organisations in the medical fields,” he said.

Beket and his team said they had invited the community to come see them and meet the guys in blue to chat and engage, and to also see the safety technology they have put in place.

“Today was about giving back to the community and also giving the neighbourhood watches a voice and an opportunity to explain and showcase their efforts in keeping the community safe. We also have organisations that specialise in rescue – they were also here to showcase themselves. They were here to show the equipment they use and demonstrate life skills,” he explained.

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Beket said technology is a huge part of the community’s infrastructure and safety.

“We are putting in a vast amount of technology. We have number-plate-recognition cameras, which track the movement of the wanted vehicles, and artificial intelligence (AI) in the upgraded cameras we have put in. That helps us to track and understand movements at certain times of the night. We also work together with the neighbourhood watches, with the systems they have put into place. This is a massive initiative involving different spheres of the community for safety,” they said.

The initiative also gave the community an opportunity to learn from each other and discover who they can call on to assist in a time of need.

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Speaking on the initiative, Hillcrest Community Policing Forum (CPF) chairperson Tracey Lynch said this is the type of initiative the community needs.

“We are grateful for such initiatives that keep our community safe, especially at a time when safety is a concern,” she said.

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