Kitikmeot youth fret over social problems, language

CAMBRIDGE BAY— Youth in Taloyoak are “out of control,” the youth delegate and board member from Taloyoak said Oct. 6 at the KIA annual general meeting in Cambridge Bay.

This summer, a group of young kids broke into the community’s preschool there, delaying its opening by three weeks. Other youth were caught vandalizing all-terrain vehicles and hunting gear and breaking windows. Some kids nearly got electrocuted playing with live power wires.

And many young people turn to drugs and alcohol because they say they have nothing to do.

The picture isn’t much better in Cambridge Bay.

KIA youth delegate Chelsea Klengenberg said many kids from Bay Chimo and Bathurst Inlet who were sent to school in Cambridge Bay don’t attend school — but they don’t want to go back to their tiny communities because there’s no television or easy access to drugs and alcohol.

To deal with the region-wide crisis among youth, Cambridge Bay’s youth delegate Melynda Minilgak said there must be tougher onsequences when kids get into trouble or drop out.

But teachers’ hands are tied and they can’t do much when a student stops showing up, she said, and police officers will often just drive by a drunk teenager stumbling down the street instead of stopping to deal with the problem.

During a youth presentation to the KIA board, Minilgak also said she wants more drug and alcohol education for youth, a drug and alcohol education committee for the community, and more sex education to lower teen pregnancies and sexually-transmitted infections.

Cambridge Bay is the only community with a youth centre. The other youth delegates said youth in their communities also want a place to call their own — but youth in Kugluktuk also recognize that a change in attitudes is as important in improving conditions as changes in the system or infrastructure, said Chad Keadjuk, the Kugluktuk youth delegate.

The youth delegates were all united in their call for more instruction in Inuuinaqtun and use of the language, which none used during their presentation.

The call for more Inuit language learning “immediately” topped their wish-list, which was included in a youth resolution to KIA the annual general meeting.

More education— on Innuinaqtun, Inuit culture, sex and the dangers of drugs and alcohol are what youth in the Kitikmeot need, said youth delegates to the Kitikmeot Inuit Association in their Oct. 6 presentation to the organization’s annual general meeting in Cambridge Bay. (PHOTO BY JANE GEORGE)