Jessica Klinkenberg
Northern News Services
Published Monday, November 12, 2007

YELLOWKNIFE - After $300,000 in federal budget cuts last year, the future looked bleak for the NWT Literacy Council.

"There were some of our programs that fell by the wayside," said Kathryn Carriere, president of the NWT Literacy Council's board of directors.

Though the federal government did restore some funding, the organization hasn't recovered completely.

"We are still feeling the impact of the cuts," she said.

When the federal cuts were first announced she said that the Government of the Northwest Territories stepped forward to help them.

However, those funds were taken back when the federal government returned the money, but only for specific programs.

"The community literacy program we had to significantly scale back. We either had to scale back or we had to completely let them go."

In 2005-2006 the group had 65 trained family literacy facilitators. In 2006-2007 they had 45, and there was $15,000 less in funding distributed to communities.

"We are project-based," she said. "The (programs) that we had the money for we continued."

She said the Literacy Council is uncertain of its future.

"We live from year-to-year," she said.

She said that another challenge for the organization is that they are a not-for-profit group, and their wages are lower than other employers.

"We can't compete with government salaries," she said.

Some projects the NWT Literacy Council was involved in 2006-07 budget year included the Aboriginal Literacies Research Project - a joint project between the council, the community of Ulukhaktok and the University of Lethbridge; and Workplace/Workforce Literacy in Northern Canada - a joint project with the Nunavut Literacy Council.

Despite the funding struggle, Carriere said that the council has stayed strong.

"We've had an incredibly successful year," she said, after the group's annual general meeting.

In 2006-07 the group held 12 family literacy training and outreach activities across the NWT. Four were in Yellowknife.

Overall 125 people participated in the activities and 52 participants were from Yellowknife.