Sunday, November 15, 2009

Lead Your Way! Be Healthy! Be Positive! Visit to Kuujjuaq

by Charlotte Qamaniq

November 12-14 2009. Kuujjuaq, QC

We arrived in Kuujjuaq on the evening of November 11 as our flight was delayed a few hours en route from Iqaluit. We stayed with Louisa and her beautiful family for the first night, and the rest of our nights at the hotel.

We spent our days at the Jaanimarik High School. This was my very first role model presentation and I was pretty nervous. We had elders come in to speak, they spoke in Inuktitut and told the students some of their life stories and lessons and they got a lot of positive feedback from the students. When it was my turn to speak I talked about how they were all role models to children younger than them; I told them about my role model and what a role model is to me. I mentioned how bullying affects people and how it was important to be considerate of other people’s feelings.

I then spoke about my experience with the Youth Suicide Prevention Walk across Canada. I emphasized how talking about our problems helps us feel better, and to be good listeners when someone seems to feel down. I answered any questions they had and told them I was available to talk to anyone as I was in town for a few days. The 2nd day I had a lot of fun playing soccer with some students followed by pizza and juice, this was probably the highlight of my trip.

The 3rd day we managed to pull off an amazing community feast with games and prizes, door prizes and a short presentation. I was impressed with how many showed up, we had about 300-350 people come and share their evening with us. Over all, I had a really good trip in Nunavik and hope that they enjoyed their time with us as much as I did with them.

No comments:

Post a Comment