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NUNAVUT
By enhancing breakfast and lunch programs in schools, improving the income support system and increasing daycare services so parents can work or go back to school, the territorial government and its partners have announced they are taking a run at reducing poverty.

The GN released The Makimaniq Plan in Iqaluit on Feb. 24, a poverty-reduction action plan prepared at last year's poverty summit in the territorial capital.

The plan contains a number of goals and objectives for each of six action areas: collaboration and community participation; healing and wellbeing; education and skills development; food security; housing and income support; community and economic development.

Other goals and objectives include creating a Nunavut food security coalition and wellness plans for every community, as well as developing family literacy programs and an early-childhood education plan.

The government has committed $6.68 million to tackle poverty this fiscal year and has given itself 18 months to co-ordinate and support initiatives with its partners, said Peter Taptuna, the minister of Economic Development and Transportation.

"The Makimaniq Plan is a call for an action and this call will be answered," he said.

See the next edition of Nunavut News/North for a more in-depth look at the report, and reaction from around the territory.

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