A two-day conference in Saskatoon is working to support youth leaving gang culture and educate the community on the steps needed to make that happen.

10,000 Healing Steps: Resilience and Community is hosted by STR8 UP — a local group that helps support gang members get out and start a positive, crime free lifestyle. It’s taught over 200 past gang members the skills and resources needed to become responsible citizens.

Faith Eagle and Dwayne Sasakamoose have lots in common. Both have dealt with drugs and experienced violence and gang activity. Both chose to change their lives.

“I was fighting to breath. I was fighting to live. And I hate fighting. I hated fighting because I felt like all my life I had to so I said, ‘OK, well this is it. I'm done,’” Eagle said. “I literally thought I was going to die in it.”

Eagle, who has been a STR8 UP member for three years, has eight children and wanted to change her life so she could leave a positive legacy for them. When Sasakamoose spent time in a federal penitentiary, he realized he needed to change. They both turned to STR8 UP to get the right skills to start on a path.

“I wasn’t healed over night. In that time I had slips, used, relapsed, but I didn’t give up,” the 30-year-old said. “I’m glad I changed.”

Sasakamoose has been a member for 10 years and recently started mentoring other STR8 UP members.

Around 500 people attended the first day of the conference. Guest speaker Father Gregory Boyle runs Homeboy Industries, the world's largest gang rehabilitation program. He said the stories of gang members in Saskatoon are similar to those he deals with in Los Angeles.

“It’s about trauma and it's about abandonment. How do you get folks to stand in awe in what the poor have to carry, rather than stand in judgement at how they carry it?”

STR8 UP’s founder, Father Andre Poilievre, has been working with youth for almost 40 years. He started the program just under 15 years ago when he was a jail chaplain. Two inmates told him they wanted to leave gang culture, but didn’t know how to get out. The three of them worked together and STR8 UP was formed.

Poilievre said connecting with the community creates new opportunities and support for members - all while breaking down stereotypes.

“They're heroes, and people don't believe that people like them can turn their lives around and we want to show that's not true,” he said.