Former teachers get movie star treatment in big comeback

Returning Kangiqsujuaq teacher Melinda Stenberg and campers Nancy and Sarah Arnaituq travel to Wakeham Beach for a camping trip. (PHOTO COURTESY OF PROUD REUNIONS)

Kangiqsujuaq team leaders James Pilurtuut and Kevin Okpik hoist up returning teacher Thomas Colter. (PHOTO COURTESY OF PROUD REUNIONS)

A new summer program reunited the dozens of teachers that come and go from Nunavik communities every year with their former students.

The “Proud Reunions” summer camp finished its second summer run in Inukjuak last month, while a successful pilot program also ran in Kangiqsujuaq.

Its goal is to bring popular former teachers back to the community to lead a week-long camp workshop for about 40 students, while training local youth as team leaders.

Students in Inukjuak and Kangiqsujuaq discussed leadership and problem solving during a workshop last month, while their former teachers taught them photography, cooking and hip-hop culture.

For 17-year-old Stacey Moreau, it was the perfect summer job before heading to college next year.

The Inukjuak teen worked as a Proud Reunions team leader in 2009 and as a coordinator in 2010, organizing activities and placing students in workshops.

“I learned how to work with other people, as a team,” Moreau said. “It was a great project, the kids have a lot of fun.”

Moreau said she got to know some of her former teachers better than when they lived in Inukjuak.

In Kangiqsujuaq, Mayor Mary Pilurtuut’s daughter Jessica was among the 40 or so students that managed to get a place in the community’s first Proud Reunions camp.

“She came home each evening with tons and tons of stories to tell about the activities that they did at camp,” Pilurtuut said. “It was exciting and fun.”

Melinda Stenberg and Thomas Colter, former teachers who returned to Kangiqsujuaq, were swarmed like movie stars, Pilurtuut joked – but added that it was truly a proud reunion.

“It was well organized and structured,” Pirlutuut said. “As mayor, we certainly support projects that we think will benefit our children and youth. They need to be busy, positively, to keep away from trouble in the community. At the end of the day…they were tired and went to bed earlier than usual time in the summer. I hope to have it again next year.”

So does its founder, Dean Blachford, who would like to see community youth have a larger role coordinating and leading the camp in future years, although former teachers will still play an important part.

Blachford himself taught in Inukjuak for two years.

When he returned south to complete his studies in 2009, Blachford said he experienced the detachment that Nunavik students face every year when teachers come and go.

Teachers who survive the students’ “test period” often go on to thrive and make lasting relationships with students, Blachford said, which makes it harder to see those teachers go.

“I’ve heard a lot about teachers that students really cared for who had left,” he said. “So I got some of their names and came up with this plan to bring some of them back.”

“They were pretty ecstatic about it,” he added. “The teachers missed the kids as much as the kids missed them.”

It wasn’t easy either, Blachford said. The majority of teachers called to come work at the camp were women, many of whom had young children and other jobs.

But those who could make it, did, he said, and were tasked with programming their own workshop to give during the week-long camp.

Otherwise, every day of the five-day program has a theme, from leadership to problem solving and an adventure day.

Kitchen staff also prepare a healthy breakfast, lunch and snack for campers.

A number of teens in Inukjuak were hired as team leaders to help facilitate the camp activities, providing an opportunity for their own skill-building.

“Last year, I had to beg and plead for team leaders, but this year, we had over 20 come forward,” Blachford said. “They learn so much.”

“It provides amazing leadership experience and opportunity to youth, and it’s a fun and healthy week for participants.”

Proud Reunions is funded in part by Brighter Futures, the regional and municipal governments, the Kativik School Board, the Pituvik and Nunaturlik Landholdings and Makivik Corp.