NUNAVUT
Each weekday morning at 8:40 a.m., about 200 of 240 students at Inuujaq School in Arctic Bay sit down for breakfast at the school.

"Sometimes they don't get it at home," said principal Abdus Salam.

For the last five or six years the school has been offering a healthy breakfast program, serving yogurt, fresh fruit and cheese.

Salam said the students need a good rich breakfast so they can learn.

It is anecdotes like this that the GN and Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. want to hear when they start the public engagement process leading to the development of the

territory's poverty reduction action plan.

"If we are to solve the poverty problem in Nunavut, each one of us must play a part in the solution," said Peter Taptuna, minister of Economic Development and Transportation at the launch of the engagement process in Iqaluit on Oct. 18. He is also in charge of the anti-poverty secretariat.

The GN will be working with Inuit organizations, non-profit groups, businesses and community members on this initiative.

"In order to create the strongest poverty reduction strategy possible we need every community's perspective," said Okalik Eegeesiak, Qikiqtani Inuit Association president and NTI executive member.

Sessions in each community to collect feedback are scheduled to start in November. From these sessions, information will be gathered and combined in a report. From March to May 2011, regional roundtables will be held in Cambridge Bay, Rankin Inlet, Pond Inlet and Iqaluit. This will all lead up to a two-day poverty summit in Iqaluit in the fall of 2011. A plan will be made from a consensus

at the summit, said Taptuna,

He and Eegeesiak acknowledged poverty is not just about one issue. It involves education, health, economic development and housing, among other issues.

Acting senior administrative officer Nancy Kalluk, in Resolute, said, in her community, there are issues with poverty. She mentioned those who don't have their Grade 12 education and are unemployed might have trouble paying the bills.

"They have to pay their rent, their power and on top of that the cost of food is so high," she said.

She added there are not a lot of services to help these individuals.

Eegeesiak said while the topic isn't always out in the open, QIA has received comments from individuals who tell them income support and student and financial assistance are not enough to cover their expenses. In communities, residents who cannot afford the equipment to go hunting are too embarrassed to ask other hunters for country food when they come back to town, she said.

One resident of Resolute said the members of the community know who is in need.

In Iqaluit, those in need can turn to the Niqinik Nuatsivik Nunavut Food Bank. The organization is solely volunteer run, relies on donations and receives no government funding.

"We're pleased anytime a government organization or anybody with more money than a not-for-profit acknowledges that there is an issue of poverty in our territory and is willing to commit resources or energies toward improving those conditions," said Jennifer Hayward, the food bank's vice-chair.

Operating on an annual budget of $40,000, the food bank recorded 1,205 visits from 372 households this year. Hayward said that while there were 1,205 visits, the number of people of use the service is greater as many people pick up food for their household.

To show poverty is on the rise, she said when the food bank opened for its first year of operation in 2000-2001 it had just 25 to 30 visits. Now their client base has increased dramatically.

Aside from $3,000 a year they spent on rent, Hayward said all money brought in goes toward buying food. The food bank's annual sealift just came in and food was ordered en masse for the year. It came in on 15 pallets and cost $37,000. The food included 60 10-kilo bags of flour, 600 cans of peas and 1,080 boxes of whole-wheat spaghetti.

Taptuna said he hopes the initiative will allow all Nunavummiut to help define poverty, to reduce it and to prevent it.

"We need to tackle it right from the core."

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