Small community equals lots of nepotism

I live in a community in Nunavik of no more than 500 people. I have been living here since the relocation to this site.

I want to write and feel as if I have been heard. I am hoping this letter is going to make changes.

Our community has a low employment rate, lack of housing and a very high cost of living. Many of us depend on government assistance programs along with support from family and neighbours for meals.

We have children that go to school hungry.

At the same time, we seem to have nepotism among the council when it comes to getting a job and a house.

You do not get hired because of your credentials. You get hired because you are a family member of a councillor. The council is in a position of power to say who gets a job and who does not.

And then, when it comes to getting a house like the new ones built a few years ago in our community, if you are from the council, you are likely to get a house.

We now have new houses with no stairs, which I thought were good for physically challenged people, but these new houses went directly to families from the council. The families who really needed them did not get the houses.

What we do best is start to put down a person and start ganging up against a person or family.

It is easier to look at other people than to look at ourselves. We do not get to see the progress and the positive choices people have made for themselves.

I am full of questions. Does this kind of behavior only happen here? And what can we do to change our community into a positive leadership community?

Because if we keep fighting each other with our tongues firing back and forth at each other, we will never get anywhere, to where we all deserve to be, that is, living the way we all deserve to live.

We do have our young generation that get to see and hear what we say and do. I want them to be able to become autonomous, responsible people. At the same time, I know it takes more than an overnight change and it’s not easy.

I hope that whatever feedback I get from you readers will also change the way I think and believe to be the way it is to live in the community where I am from.

(Name withheld by request)
Inuk resident of a Nunavik community