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RANKIN INLET - Rankin Inlet's free computer sites are suffering from a cash crunch and a lack of staff, according to a local Computer Access Program (CAP) administrator.

The Rankin CAP, which offers computer use at no charge for the public throughout the week, has about 20 machines between the Pulaarvik Friendship Centre and the local library.

Kevin Naitok hangs out as mom Shannon uses a computer at the Pulaarvik Friendship Centre's Computer Access Program site. The centre's director said the site could really use a full-time supervisor. - Karen Mackenzie/NNSL photo

However, there's not always someone around to answer questions should a visitor run into a digital snag, or to keep an eye on the youth who usually pile in after school and that needs to be addressed, according to George Dunkerley, director of the friendship centre.

"It's the one thing that our CAP site desperately needs is long-term, stable funding for a site supervisor," Dunkerley said. "It benefits a big chunk of our community, and if we can get the funding in place that's sustainable it can go a long way."

A broad range of people drop in on a regular basis, from job seekers to students completing their distance education.

Students and youth drop by after school to do homework, or just to chat with friends and family in other communities online.

The CAP program was established in Rankin in 2005, at the request of a number of young people around the community.

A contribution agreement with the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs Canada pays for some equipment purchases, and there are other small contributions for specific items.

But as for supervisors, Dunkerley usually does the job himself at the friendship centre in between his regular work duties.

Adding to the hassle this week is news that the CAP site in the friendship centre will have to move. It's being supplanted to accommodate Pulaarvik's pre-natal program, which will now be run in the back room of the friendship centre.

The 13 computers at the friendship centre will likely end up at the library, according to Dunkerley.

"Being under-funded is standard for pretty much every CAP site across the territory," said Darlene Thompson, community access program administrator for Nunavut.

The most funding sites usually receive for staffing is the equivalent of a salary for 12 weeks each year, at 35 hours week.

"You just get someone trained up and then they're gone," Thompson said.

A few years back, six communities in Nunavut did get added funding through regional Inuit organizations and Human Resources Development Canada. That money allowed them to hire a site supervisor. The three-year funding arrangement expired last spring, and no new funding has been forthcoming, according to Thompson.

"It made a huge difference for those communities and those CAP sites," she said. "They were able to do a whole lot of programs that they couldn't otherwise have done."

In Clyde River, for instance, the site supervisor helped establish a media centre and train local youth in computer editing. Now filmmakers and visiting researchers can hire "youth not just as load bearers, but as camera people and editors," she said.

Repulse Bay is the only Kivalliq community to have received that three-year funding. Randy Kopak - who is also the community's Qiniq service provider - ran the site during that time.

Over that period "he really became the go-to person for the community on all things to do with computer systems," Thompson said.

Nunavut's CAP program is going after that funding again, but there's no word yet on whether they will receive it, she said.