Inuit orgs can’t solve all social, economic woes alone: KIA

Youth delegates at the Kitikmeot Inuit Association meeting in Cambridge Bay speak Oct. 20 about their loss of language and other challenges at the organization’s annual general meeting. (PHOTO BYJANE GEORGE)

(updated)

CAMBRIDGE BAY — On the day after the suicide death of a teenaged boy in Cambridge Bay, youth delegates at the Kitikmeot Inuit Association annual general meeting asked why, in a world where many youth struggle to survive, Nunavut youth are killing themselves.

The delegates, in their teens, called for more “embrace life” days and action to stop suicide from being a “normal things for communities.”

“We need to recognize that this should not be a normal thing, and how wrong it is, rather than brushing it off after a time when a person takes their [own] life away,” said Melynda Minilgak, the youth delegate for Cambridge Bay, on Oct. 20, the final day of the KIA’s annual general meeting.

At every annual meeting of the KIA, youth representing the five communities of the Kitikmeot region in western Nunavut present a report to the gathering.

But this year their message sounded even more troubled and urgent than in 2010 and sent the young delegates — and others in the room listening to them — reaching for tissues to wipe away their tears.

Contributing to the youth suicide crises in the Kitikmeot — where several have committed suicide and many more have tried since this time last year — are issues such as low self-esteem, teenaged pregnancy and loss of the Inuit language among the younger generations.

“That subject is very tough for me to talk about because I myself cannot speak or understand the Inuit language,” Minilgak told those at the KIA meeting.

What’s needed, Minilgak suggested on behalf of the other youth delegates at the meeting, are better learning materials, improved teaching and more guidance — which could provide more motivation on the part of youth to learn the Inuit language, she said.

In the Kitikmeot region the Inuit language includes three dialects, Inuinnaqtun, Netsilingmiut and Inuktitut.

“If the youth were inspired to learn it, and exposed to the benefits we could gain by learning it, I think that would take us one step closer to actually learning the language,” Minilgak said.

Suicides and loss of the Inuit language aren’t the only hurdles facing youth in the Kitikmeot.

Youth have ready access to drugs and alcohol, which, as Jacob Teeltak of Gjoa Haven said, lead to vandalism and are “all adding up to criminals… one more young, uneducated, neglected criminal.”

Teeltak and the other youth called for more intervention so younger children won’t be exposed to vandalism, drugs or alcohol.

While there’s no seeming end to the problems, youth did have some practical suggestions — the creation of a new regional youth association and more structured youth committees, increased access to “untraditional” northern activities, such as swimming pools and training as lifeguards, more contact with elders, as a way of preventing social “disruption and destruction,” and more information about encouraging projects like the Canadian High Arctic Research Station, which is due to open its doors in Cambridge Bay in 2017.

The message of the youth was “strong,” acknowledged KIA president Charlie Evalik, who suggested that youth should work together and that working with other groups could help youth.

The themes of extreme social isolation brought out by youth at the KIA meeting replayed in the reports of elders and women, who also had their own burderns to share.

For the elders, it’s the practical difficulties of moving around, of going shopping and then waiting hours for a lift home with heavy bags, seeing hunting equipment handed out by the local harvesters program going to people who don’t hunt (and then turn around and sell their snowmobiles and four-wheelers), having no help with snow removal or fetching ice for water, and, in the worst case scenario, facing abuse from their children and grandchildren.

Women say they have little access to sexual education or childcare and, in the communities outside Cambridge Bay, lack places to gather and sew.

But after listening to these reports and a list of 34 additional community concerns, one thing became clear: the KIA isn’t going to try and tackle them all on its own.

Some of the concerns touched on infrastructure shortfalls, the lack of dentists and problems with medical treatment at nursing stations.

“I don’t have the answers because they’re someone else’s responsibility,” said its president Evalik.

People should also go to their hamlets, the Nunavut government and the federal government, he said, and not just wait until the annual general meeting to air their problems.

Evalik said he plans to visit all five Kitikmeot communities early in the 2011 with a list of these all these issues, and, while he’s there, to arrange joint meetings with local, territorial and federal government officials.