Hard to heal

Few Nunavut groups get share of $350M fund

Dawn Ostrem
Northern News Services

Clyde River (Feb 19/01) - The co-ordinator of a family resource centre says a national group whose job is to fund aboriginal healing programs is tangled in red tape.

Fund Facts The AHF has to disperse all of the remaining $250 million by 2003. In the North, 18 projects have shared $5,004,385.60, or 12 per cent of funding distributed by June 12, 2000. Applications for third cycle of funding are Feb. 23 and Aug. 31. Funding is available for projects falling under five suggested 'themes': Community Healing; Empowering Women; Developing and enhancing aboriginal capacities; Restoring balance; and, Honour and history. Purpose of themes is to "help applicants get ideas ... that can heal all members of the community ... whose bodies, mind and spirit have been affected. The foundation is run by a 17-member board. Its mission statement: Our mission is to encourage and support Aboriginal people in building and reinforcing sustainable healing processes that address the Legacy of Physical and Sexual Abuse in the Residential School System, Including Intergenerational Impacts. The AHF has a full-time staff of 59. Its 2000 expenses of $4,970,342 included $3,414,286 in salaries; $217,459 for travel; and $202,966 in rent. Lease commitments from 2001-2004 total $1,283,209. Included among its capital assets was $18,047 for artwork.

Beverly Illuaq, co-ordinator of the Ilisaqsivik Family Resource Centre, said her agency is one of a dozen Nunavut groups that have been unsuccessful in securing funding from the $350 million Aboriginal Healing Foundation (AHF).

Since the foundation began in 1998, only two groups have received grants: the hamlet of Cape Dorset received $251,080 over two years for its program and Mianiqsijit in Baker Lake received $64,429 this year.

"The (foundation) is more focused on red tape than healing," said Illuaq. She filed a 60-page proposal with the Ottawa-based AHF last year. Money would have paid for staff, counsellors, programs and training. It was rejected.

Illuaq saw a need for funding in Clyde River to help heal problems created in the 1950s and '60s when Inuit were sent to tuberculosis sanitariums in southern Canada, many were there for several years.

"It had devastating effects on people and their families," she said. "Their families did not know if they were alive or dead."

When they returned, many were no longer able to communicate in their native language, Inuktitut, and had lost contact with their culture.

Nunavut children also attended the residential school in Chesterfield, were shipped to the Churchill Vocational Centre in Manitoba and sent to other southern residential organizations.

Illuaq said the proposal was rejected because it was not set in a residential structure and did not study how many people in the community went to residential schools.

Working to improve

The AHF would not discuss its reasons for rejecting the Ilisaqsivik Society's proposal, but director of communications, Al Gabriel, said the number of Inuit proposals they received is low and money is there for projects that meet criteria.

"If you can demonstrate ... a good idea on how to deal with that ... your chances of being approved are very good."

To improve Nunavut groups' chances of getting some of the money, AHF will hire three community support co-ordinators in each Nunavut region, an Inuktitut-speaking aide in Ottawa and revise the third edition of a handbook on proposal writing, including one in Inuktitut.

Illuaq said the Ilisaqsivik Society couldn't wait. It has secured $700,000 in other federal funds to operate the healing centre.

She still thinks the foundation should hone in more closely on its mandate.

"I think this has potential to do a lot, but the federal government still has apologies to make," she said.

She plans to apply to the AHF again.

She is one of three counsellors at the society and since the end of June has dealt with over 50 clients.

"We can't hang on," she said. "People are dying as we speak."