Pauktuutit to create national Inuit AIDS network

Canada’s Inuit women’s association will train 42 people to carry out AIDS education among Canada’s Inuit.

By JANE GEORGE

IQALUIT — By next spring, a new HIV-AIDS network for Canada’s Inuit should be in place.

It’s intended to give Inuit a stronger voice in national health policy, allow more information to circulate in communities and, most importantly, curb the number of deaths caused by AIDS, the fatal illness linked to the HIV virus.

Pauktuutit, the national Inuit women’s association, has received $340,000 from Health Canada to spearhead this new HIV-AIDS network.

Last week in Ottawa, Pauktuutit’s steering committee on AIDs — which includes Obed Anoee, Olive Binder, Roda Grey, Vinnie Karetak, Morty Iqqaqsaq, Elena Labranche, Roger Mannilaq, Louisa Ukaliannuk, Maggie Webb and Zipporah Ypma — met to talk about how this network will be developed.

At its base will be 42 people, selected from all regions in Canada where Inuit live, who will work closely together, and within their respective communities.

Pauktuutit is promoting this network because AIDS educators have come to believe that information is only as useful as its effective delivery within communities.

“In the spread of HIV community knowledge and scientific knowledge are equal,” said Todd Armstrong.

Armstrong, who is coordinating Pauktuutit’s HIV-AIDS program, has been a frequent speaker in the North on AIDS. He’s seen first-hand the importance of good communication.

“If I can’t help the people in communities to understand the information, nothing will change,” Armstrong said.

In January and February, 2000 Pauktuutit is planning two sessions in Ottawa on HIV and AIDS information and how to talk about it.

These five-day sessions will help participants deal with such issues as how to talk about HIV, how to dress and what language to use

Three participants will attend from the Western Arctic, Kitikmeot, Kivalliq and Labrador regions. Eight will represent the Baffin region, and seven will come from Nunavik. There will be six youth, three “urban” Inuit and two elders. Yellowknife will send one participant.

As well, four will come from corrections facilities in Yellowknife, Fort Simpson, Iqaluit and Goose Bay.

“The expectation is that then they return to their communities, they will do at least one HIV-AIDS presentation,” said Armstrong. “It will be the start of the network that will give us 42 people across the North and in the cities.”

Last year, Pauktuutit concentrated on developing a six-part series of booklets on HIV and AIDS, soon to be available in Inuktitut.

This series includes booklets with titles like HIV/AIDS: the basics; Your immune system and testing for HIV; HIV: the risks; Protecting yourself from HIV; Women and HIV/AIDS; and Sexually transmitted diseases and AIDS.

The booklets are dedicated to Leetia Geetah, an Iqaluit woman who died of AIDS.

“Before her death from AIDS in 1992, Leetia Geetah traveled to many northern communities to dispel myths and educate Inuit about HIV/AIDS,” reads the introduction.

“Several years earlier, fear of AIDS had forced Leetia out of her community and into care of strangers in the south. That experience led her to become the remarkable AIDS educator she will be remembered as. Through her honesty about her own health, other Inuit began to understand the risks and the challenges HIV/AIDS is for all of us. Leetia was able to show us the difference one person can make.”

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