Jorge Barrera
Northern News Services

Rankin Inlet (July 11/01) - Four southern university students are in the Kivalliq region on an invitation from the territorial Department of Education to run literacy camps in four communities.

On a week's break between camps, the four students, staying at Kivalliq Hall in Rankin Inlet, took time out for an interview with Kivalliq News.

Iris Lui, Christie Rall, Heather Wallace and Tim Ley, all Queens university students, are part of the Queens Projects on International Development and all chose to come North through the program.

"I wanted to see if I could nurse up here," said Heather Wallace, a recent nursing graduate, on her reason for choosing Nunavut.

"It was an opportunity to see a part of the country I haven't seen and it intrigued me," said Christie Rall, an English major.

The four students pair up and work in a community for four weeks. It is up to them to tailor their programs to suit each community.

Tim Ley and Rall recently returned from Repulse Bay. According to Rall, they tried to incorporate reading into the everyday games and apparently some of the children picked up on it.

"During a teen dance the music kept on cutting out every five minutes and the kids sang the ABCs in between," said Rall.

Near the end of the camp the children made a book of Inuktitut words, the English translations and drawings depicting the words.

"We couldn't help them, we don't know Inuktitut," said Ley. "They gathered together and argued about the meanings of words and came to their conclusions."

Between five to 15 children attended the camp in Repulse Bay.

Lui and Wallace spent four weeks in Baker Lake where they worked with around 30 children.

They said they created a summer camp atmosphere making reading a part of all activities, from baking to playing Mission Impossible.

"It wasn't really structured because we had a large group," said Wallace. "We just tried to incorporate writing with daily activities."

The literary camps are supported by the Kivalliq School Division and the students own fund-raising efforts. It is the second year for the program.

The students are entering the second half of the camp circuit. Rall and Lui are in Coral Harbour this week and Wallace and Ley are in Chesterfield Inlet for a four week stay.

"Eventually we'd like to see these camps run by the communities themselves," said Wallace.