Darrell Greer
Northern News Services

Rankin Inlet (Mar 27/02) - The dream of travelling to Greenland began about three years ago for the 1998-99 upgrading class at the Rankin Inlet Community Learning Centre.

With Nunavut just coming into being at the time, the Nunavut Ajunngittugut class was comparing Greenland to the new territory as part of their studies.

The class, at the time, comprised adult students who had returned to school to upgrade their academic skills and prepare themselves for the rapid changes the birth of a new territory promised to bring.

Greenlanders had already had the benefit of 20 years of their own system of home rule.

Instructor Janet Onalik says the class wanted to learn about the successes of home rule as Nunavummiut face similar social, political and cultural challenges with the development of a new territorial government.

She says Inuit and Greenlanders share a unique cultural heritage and it is important to maintain Inuit traditions.

"The program is about eight months long and, about halfway through, a number of students and staff decided they wanted to travel to Greenland in order to get more information on all these things," says Onalik.

"They started fundraising as actually part of the course's learning experience component. The students learned how to write proposal letters, created a data base of different funders and met with various people to seek financial assistance for the trip."

The course ended in May 1999, but most of the people involved decided to continue their fundraising efforts by holding bingos, hosting a number of Blues Cafes at the learning centre and holding a raffle. The group, which now includes 13 former students and staff members, have raised enough for their trip to Sisimiut, Greenland.

They leave this week and Onalik says the anticipation has been growing steadily for the past few months.

"Although we've lost a few people during the past three years, it's pretty exciting to think we had this idea and stuck with it until we were finally able to go. We couldn't have done it without the help of First Air and the Walter and Duncan Gordon Foundation in Toronto, who helped with our raffles."