RANKIN INLET
The Ilitaqsiniq - Nunavut Literacy Council's Miqqut program received national acclaim this past month.

Elder Quluaq Pilakapsi, shown wearing a tuilik made by Charmaine Okatsiak, is one of the instructors who helped earn the Ilitaqsiniq Nunavut Literacy Council's Miqqut project national acclaim this past month. - photo courtesy of Adriana Kusugak

The program took top spot in the annual Great-West Life, London Life and Canada Life Literacy Innovation Award.

The annual award recognizes five Canadian organizations that develop and implement innovative adult literacy programs providing outstanding learning opportunities for their clients and communities.

The Nunavut council's literacy program co-ordinator, Adriana Kusugak, will be accepting the $20,000 prize cheque this Thursday, Sept. 17, in Toronto.

Four other honourable mention cheques of $5,000 will also be presented.

Kusugak said to receive the top award was pretty exciting.

She said the budget to run the Miqqut program is quite high and every bit of funding helps council programming.

"The federal government cut core funding to all literacy organizations this past year, and we're only still in existence because we have project-based funding," said Kusugak.

"So every little bit helps a lot to us, being non-profit and without core funding."

Kusugak said the award validates the Miqqut program, and shows financial supporters how valued the type of work being done by the council is.

She said the recognition is very meaningful to the council, because it allows it to shine a light on the potential of its programs.

"Whether we can sponsor another Miqqut program depends on funding.

"Miqqut is an embedded-literacy project, and we're trying to show people literacy can be embedded into a variety of areas.

"Right now we're developing a new embedded-literacy project that we hope to launch in the coming year.

"That said, we're really happy with how much of a success the Miqqut program is and, if we can secure funding, we will definitely be running it again."

Kusugak said it will be a while before Miqqut's fate becomes known, because the council doesn't have the funding to run it on its own.

She said $20,000 is not enough to run Miqqut on its own, but it will be used on literacy programs in Nunavut.

"Hopefully we have not seen the last of the Miqqut programming, but it depends totally on what funding we can access going forward.

"We will also get to showcase the details of the Miqqut program in a national webinar, which is also pretty exciting for us."