Good health for Inuit women means addressing poverty and financial insecurity

This is not meant to challenge anyone. It is important that you hear that the Inuit are hurting and I ask you politely to hear me out.

Perhaps, the people of the North haven’t always been listened to like they should because they do not talk like us or think like us and they do not act like us when pushed against a wall, and so, they have not been heard. They are so far away and there is little information trickling south about them.

The plight of the Northern people is easy to dismiss because we don’t see them and like someone pointed out, the information is skewed.

The power to make a difference, but what about political will?

In 1997, the Human Rights and Youth Commission, alerted by the lack of services available to children in need of protection, concluded a five-year-long investigation by pointing out that overcrowded housing in Nunavik posed a very serious threat to the development and well-being of children. This issue, the lack of housing in Nunavik, has been dragging on for years.

The present situation looks the same 

Ten years later, between 2007 and 2010, the situation is similar. There, families and social workers are struggling with the placement of children because available families are often far away from the communities. As Nunavik is a gigantic territory, these communities are often thousands of kilometres apart.

The perspective of potentially ruining a child’s outcomes claims my commitment

The point I want to make here is that the perspective of potentially ruining a child’s outcomes claimed my commitment when I was working up North in Nunavik, Quebec, Canada.

It was the hardest work I have ever had to do and you have to have done it to say something like: "On Monday mornings, I put myself in button-responsive mode and I will reflect on what I have done when I leave here for good" (my co-worker's words to me when I complained about never being allowed by supervisor to think things through for the best of the people and the children). No Child Should Take the Long Way Home aims to reduce the number of placements children have to face in Nunavik.

Everything is changing-the future needs re-arranging

Transcultural placements of Inuit children are more complex than what seems to meet the eye. Children are often placed in non-Inuit families for years and sometimes never return home.

Policies and practices reflect longstanding and deeply embedded mother-blaming culture and father invisibility ideologies that shape child protection systems. This misuse of power attests to our colonization past when it comes to this isolated population.

The spiritual meaning of truth and reconciliation for the tribes

I’m waiting to get walking again. Some people react to the fact that I’m not walking constantly. I get questions like “Aren’t you going to be late in your walk of 8000 kilometers"? What is your agenda? If you’re not walking, what is the sense"?