Nunavut RCMP member receives international award

RCMP Sgt. Yvonne Niego is the recipient of this year’s International Association of Women Police Community Service Award. She is only the second Canadian, and the first Inuk, to be singled out for this honour. (FILE PHOTO)

An Iqaluit-based mother of three who grew up in Baker Lake and dreamed one day of becoming a Mountie is this year’s recipient of a prestigious international policing award.

Sgt. Yvonne Niego, well-known to local media as the point person for RCMP communications in Nunavut, received the International Association of Women Police Community Service Award during a ceremony Oct. 1 in Winnipeg, Man.

Only one female officer is singled out annually, and in the past, winners have included police members from around the world.

Niego is only the second Canadian to win the award and the first RCMP member to do so. She is also the first Inuk to win it.

“While her accomplishments are numerous, they include her work on firearms safety, family violence, child abuse, child sexual abuse, suicide prevention, media relations, cultural orientation and conflict resolution,” says an Oct. 1 RCMP news release.

“Yvonne is a proud member of the RCMP, has dedicated her life to the service of the people of Nunavut and is a role model to others.”

A background document issued by the International Association of Women Police says Niego attended residential school in Churchill and Yellowknife and was the first person from Baker Lake to attend university.

She was recruited by the national police force in 1989 as a summer student and then in 1991, attended the RCMP Training Academy to become the first Nunavut Inuk to become a full regular member.

Niego took a break from policing to raise three children, but eventually returned to the RCMP and grew into what the force calls a “subject matter expert,” in the Community and Aboriginal Policing Directorate at RCMP headquarters in Ottawa.

According to the IAWP, she is recognized as one of the country’s leading Inuit policing experts.

In December 2013, Niego was promoted from corporal to sergeant.

She now oversees all community policing initiatives for Nunavut’s V Division and is also the divisional media coordinator.

In her spare time, she is a coach, fundraiser and a board director with several organizations, including women’s shelters, suicide prevention organizations and youth groups.

“Sgt. Niego’s focus throughout her career has been on helping the vulnerable,” the IAWP release says, “and her involvement does not stop after the end of the workday as she spends countless hours of her own time on these initiatives.”

Nunatsiaq News reporters extend our congratulations to Sgt. Niego for this accomplishment.