Recently, The Universal Warrior Mixed Martial Arts A+ Summer Leadership Camp (ages 5-14) of New Jersey took part in an annual Impacting Reinforcement Education Program with the Hudson County Sheriff’s Department in an effort to help our children see police in a positive perspective during society’s uproar against law enforcement nationwide.
Unfortunately, we are living in a time where the public and media are wrongly portraying police as untrustworthy. It’s easy to allow this to happen with various sources of media portraying things in a biased manner. Not only this, we are also hoping to instill in our students the motivation and inspiration to be better community leaders and be productive citizens in society.
As a part of this empowering lecture program led by Sgt. Wilson Ruiz, the Hudson County Sheriff’s Department gave our kids a full tour and education on not only the Judiciary/ Legal System in New Jersey, but also the Sheriff Officer Training Center and concordant processes. Our goal is always about “safety first”, bully safety, and prevention. We were able to allow our children to see from the inside how things work. We also want them to understand that “All Lives Matter”!
We need our children to trust and respect officers, as they are here to help us, not hurt us. That may be an easy thing to forget these days.
Special thanks to Sgt. Wilson Ruiz for giving our kids an empowering lecture on the inner workings on the Jersey City Police Department and why it is better to grow up as a community leader versus allowing oneself to drift into a life of crime, a life that may seem easy to slip into. It was a great deterrence for the students, and provided early prevention which could help keep them on the right side of the law, starting young. Power is in education!! And our hopes are, our kids will spread to the word and help share the positive message to their friends, their parents, and the outgrowth can provide real positive changes to positively impact our community.
We have a diverse group of kids, ranging from ages 5 to 17; they asked many questions and absorbed a lot of valuable information. It has definitely impacted their awareness, just as we hoped.
In closing, we would like to offer our sincerest gratitude to the Hudson County Sheriff’s Office and Sgt. Wilson Ruiz for everything, the abundance of knowledge and valuable information, the time they gave to us, and the gift bags which the children loved.
