Guy Quenneville
Northern News Services
Monday, June 11, 2007

SANIKILUAQ - The Najuqsivik Daycare Society has announced its plan to build Sanikiluaq's first ever women's shelter.

"We want to make the future better for the community," said John Jamieson, chairman of the society. "We are just starting to let the community know and get their feedback."

The shelter will be a co-operative project involving several organizations including the Nunavut Housing Association - which is shipping the building package in about 20 crates to the community - the Qammaq Housing Association and the Department of Education.

Female students from Nuiyak School - ranging in age from 16 to 19 years old - will handle the construction with a female carpenter overseeing the entire project.

"It's women for women," said Jamieson, echoing the project's unofficial slogan.

The shelter will boast an office, three bedrooms, a common area and a kitchen. It will offer temporary shelter for women and their children suffering abuse or living in troubled households - a problem that tends to multiply in some communities, said Jamieson.

"If there's a problem in one house, it often spreads to three or four other houses. Other families are disrupted.

"This will help avoid spreading the problem to other houses. Plus we'll offer some counseling sessions," he said.

"We're currently consulting with other centers and they say the maximum stay is usually two weeks. But we're hoping it won't have to be used all the time."

Social workers will be on hand to provide the counseling, serving on what Jamieson terms "community committee groups" also made up of town elders as well as prominent people in the town.

"Elders get a lot of respect," he said.

Jamieson said the daycare's commitment to the project stems from public demand for the shelter.

"The daycare has gotten involved because ladies have come to ask if they could have a place like this."

The project's other goal - besides serving as a safe haven for women - is to promote women in trades, said Jamieson.

Jessie Fraser, a Grade 12 student from Nuiyak School, has taken part in other construction projects has seen many of her friends receive subsequent full-time employment with the housing association.

"It really makes us proud when we work together," said Fraser. "We finished (a duplex) and looked at it and said, 'Wow. We did this.'"