Nunavut summer camps for youth stress better mental, physical health

Exercises were part of the program at Cambridge Bay’s 2011 Makimautiksat Wellness and Empowerment camp. (FILE PHOTO)

Deborah Koblogina and Jarret Miyok display their Arctic char filets which are ready for drying — part of the skills they practiced during the two-day land portion of the Makimautiksat Wellness and Empowerment camp last summer in Cambridge Bay. (FILE PHOTO)

This summer, kids in Iqaluit and Pangnirtung will enjoy camping, hunting, cooking, Inuit games, eating country food and learning from local carvers, artists and seamstresses.

Along with this, they will learn other skills, such as how to deal with peer pressure and uncomfortable emotions.

Those are the kinds of experiences campers will look forward to this summer during the Makimautiksat Wellness and Empowerment camps, run by the Qaujigiartiit Health Research Centre in Iqaluit from June 25 to July 7 and in Pangnirtung from July 11 to 30.

The 2012 camps follow the model of similar Makimautiksat camps in both Cambridge Bay and Arviat which proved to be successful, or as one camper put it, a place to “let stuff out of your heart.”

That’s in line with the camps’ purpose, which is to “help to enhance and build overall wellness and empowerment in youth in Nunavut,” youth research coordinator Jennifer Noah said.

Noah, a lead creator of the program, says the 2012 Makimautiksat camps will resemble those held last year, with guest speakers coming in to speak about their work, and there will on-the-land trips.

But this year there will be more focus on peer mentorship, she said. This means older youth, aged 16 to 20, will be on hand to serve as role models for the younger ones.

“It’s not just a southern model,” she said about the camps, which are the result of a year and a half of consultation with youth, parents, youth workers and community members around Nunavut.

The Makimautiksat camps, geared at youth 11 to 15, are guided by eight models, or ujarait, meaning “rocks” — healthy relationships, improving coping skills, increasing awareness of the body, movement and nutrition, exploring creativity, increasing self-esteem, self-discovery and future planning as well as how to deal with substance abuse.

But each community will have a camp designed for that community and “every camp is unique,” she said.

That’s because local community members are involved with the camps and act as speakers to the group, addressing the eight ujarait in their own ways.

For example, under the model of “exploring creativity,” making drums in Cambridge Bay would be different than the drums made in Iqaluit, because the style of drums and the teachers would be different.

In Iqaluit, the creative component will also involve dramatic arts and story telling.

Either way, there is much to take away.

The land trip during Cambridge Bay’s Makimautiksat camp in 2011 “was awesome,” Noah said. There, “kids felt like they really learned some applicable skills,” she said, because they learned art and land skills like hunting and preparing food.

“It all contributes to mental health and wellness but it’s not a mental health camp,” she said, although that’s a priority for the centre, which received $2.4 million over five years from the Public Health Agency of Canada in 2011 for its mental health work among youth.