Darrell Greer
Northern News Services

Rankin Inlet (Apr 17/00) - You must strengthen individual communities to make a region stronger, and, in order to that, you must ensure each community is maximizing its potential.

That was a focus of a recent capacity-building workshop (The Katimavigjuaq Conference) for communities of the Kivalliq Region held in Rankin Inlet.

A total of 36 people from the Kivalliq's seven hamlets attended the event, jointly sponsored by the Health Promotions Branch of the Nunavut Department of Health, the Department of the Environment and Brighter Futures.

The workshop investigated the communities' abilities to develop economic, social and health programs.

"We recognize there's a lot of building in the communities to be done in all these fields," says Myrna Michon, executive director of the Pulaarvik Kablu Friendship Centre, which organized the event.

"But, there are different capabilities in each community to do this.

"The idea of the workshop was to look at what resources the communities have to build on and what each needs put in place to avail itself to the opportunities out there."

Michon says the Rankin workshop was just the first segment of the project.

Each community will be visited to solidify the Rankin findings and gather more information and points of view.

Project organizers are also in the process of creating a three-part resource directory.

The first part will have a directory of possible sources of help for any given project.

The second will highlight projects currently in place so participants can gauge which undertakings may be suitable for their community.

The third will be a directory of each community, highlighting its people and organizations.

"We hope to get the visits done within six weeks. The resource directory will probably take about two or three months to complete."