Nunavik’s school-success project offers words of encouragement

“Perseverance is a joint effort”

By NUNATSIAQ NEWS

Youth Fusion music instructors Geneviève Bernier and Alan Dicknoether pose with their music students outside of Ikusik school in Salluit. Youth Fusion is one of 14 projects funded by Nunavik's Esuma initiative. (PHOTO COURTESY OF YOUTH FUSION)


Youth Fusion music instructors Geneviève Bernier and Alan Dicknoether pose with their music students outside of Ikusik school in Salluit. Youth Fusion is one of 14 projects funded by Nunavik’s Esuma initiative. (PHOTO COURTESY OF YOUTH FUSION)

Nunavik’s major stay-in-school initiative is launching a number of school perseverance projects this week, as part of a special promotional week

Esuma, which aims to tackle low attendance rates and improve the quality of education across Nunavik, is taking part in the Quebec-wide School Perseverance Week by offering encouragement to Nunavik youth.

Overseen by the Kativik Regional Government and its partner organizations, Esuma is imitating a Quebec model that brings together public and private organizations, along with the community, to work towards keeping youth in school until graduation.

Since it put out a call for projects in 2014, Esuma has awarded some of its budget of $1.5 million, in provincial funding, to 14 different projects across the region.

A project to be launched this week in collaboration with Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami is called Inuit Rites of Passage. The first step included a two-day school success workshop in Inukjuak.

The workshop focused on growing parent involvement in school through the use of Inuit traditions and culture.

The suggestions and comments that came from that will be used to create a parent-teacher toolkit, outlining ways to build the relationship between the school and community.

Another project called Nirukittumiut, created by Thomassie Mangiok’s Pirnoma Technologies Inc., is focused on developing a 10-episode animated series promoting “the importance of knowing, understanding and the ability to solve.”

Other projects are already being implemented across the region, such as Youth Fusion’s performing arts programs, run in Salluit, Umiujaq and Kuujjuaraapik.

Esuma is also helping to fund Nunavimmiut involvement in a walk between Matimekush and Kuujjuaq later this month.

As part of School Perseverance Week, which runs until Feb. 20, the KRG is inviting people to send an electronic postcard to friends and family, to encourage students and let them know their hard work is worthwhile.

“We want to encourage young people to stay in school, take pride in what they can achieve, and see what they can become,” said Julie-Ann Berthe, a member of the Esuma Nunavik table on school perseverance.

“Words of encouragement are always uplifting, and perseverance is a joint effort.”

Esuma, roughly translated as “thinking” in Inuktitut, recognizes drop-out rates as a social problem, rather than an educational one.

Esuma is funded through Quebec’s department of employment and social solidarity, which is paying out $1.5 million between 2012 and 2015 to the KRG to manage the project.

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