After completing his studies at JIBC’s Paramedic Academy, Ryan Vena hopes to work as a paramedic but plans to carry on using his skills in the Downtown Eastside with the outreach society he founded.
Ryan Vena is taking the skills he learned at the Justice Institute of British Columbia’s (JIBC) Paramedic Academy to the streets of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, through an outreach society he founded.
Ryan recently completed JIBC’s Primary Care Paramedic (PCP) program, after finishing the Emergency Medical Responder (EMR) program at the Institute the year before. What he appreciated most about his JIBC experience is the fact their instructors are working paramedics.
“I fully believe a lived experience gives you a step up on someone who’s just learned it from books … you can relate it to a sort of real-life situation.”
Ryan has drawn on his own lived experience for years. Prior to attending JIBC, he worked in the trades then studied social work before sinking into drug addiction. It was while he was in recovery about three years ago that he realized he had lost numerous friends to fentanyl overdoses, part of the recent opioid overdose crisis. Since part of recovery is giving back, he decided to help fill a void, of volunteers providing outreach to people on the ground.
“So I grabbed a backpack full of sandwiches and a Narcan kit, went to the Downtown Eastside and started helping. I had no idea it was going to grow to what it is now.”
Street Saviours Outreach Society was born. Eventually, Ryan recruited other volunteers from his recovery house and then determined the overdoses they were frequently encountering were getting more severe. That’s when he decided he needed more medical training and became a student at JIBC. read more