Terry Halifax
Northern News Services

Inuvik (May 31/02) - A wide range of health-care providers turned out for the second annual health and wellness fair, held last Friday at the Midnight Sun Recreation Complex.

Booths representing Resources, Wildlife and Economic Development, cultural medicine, family counselling and public health were set up for the second annual fair.

Organizer Alfred Moses was very impressed by the support of the health community.

"I was really pleased with the booths and how they handled their presentations," Moses said.

"All the kids were really interested."

Moses said while the fair was geared to a school-aged audience he'd hoped to see more people of all ages taking in the fair.

"Even-though we were focused primarily on youth, we were hoping more adults would have shown up," he said.

The primary goal of the fair is to promote healthy life choices at an early age.

"It's important in prevention and promotion (to educate) people about the health problems that plague our community," Moses said.

"It's like a one-stop shop for health care." Moses said there is a lot of money being spent on rehabilitation and treating people, but not very much being spent on prevention and promotion.

"I think that is a very important aspect of health," he said.

"If we can educate young people now, then we won't have to spend the money on treatment later."

"A lot of the health problems we see in the community now are centred around adults, but we are trying to get the message across to the youth that they need healthy lifestyles," Moses said.

"A lot of youth copy what they see in adults and we need to have more good role models." He said the fair was a success due to the participants who offered a lot of help and the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation for funding.

This is the second time public health has hosted the event and they plan to do it again next year.

Moses said there may even be shorter, monthly seminars focused on one topic.

"This year's was better than last year's and next years will probably be better than this one too," Moses said.