[Witness speaks in Inuktitut]
Hi. I'm Connie. I work at the Tungasuvvingat Inuit Family Resource Centre. This is Christine Lund, and she is the diabetes awareness coordinator at Tungasuvvingat Inuit. My coworker Ernie Kadloo is the child and family programs facilitator at the Inuit Family Resource Centre.
We came here today to give you a bit of a picture of urban Inuit in Ottawa and how the issues might relate to childhood obesity. Christine will talk a little bit about the risk factors. I'll outline a few of the child and family programs we have as well as the diabetes awareness program, and the results of an urban Inuit conference that was held and hosted by our organization last year, in 2005. Then Ernie will speak briefly about the inherent connection between Inuit culture, games, and the physicality of preserving health and welfare among our children and families.
Just to give you a bit of background, Tungasuvvingat Inuit was incorporated in 1987. It was created to serve the unique needs of urban Inuit in Ottawa and Ontario. We have some programs right now that also service Inuit right across Canada, such as the diabetes awareness program and our Mamisarvik treatment program. Tungasuvvingat Inuit provides support in the development of social, health, cultural, and economic programming and services to empower and enhance the lives of Inuit living across Canada and in urban centres.
Currently, we have a staff of 26, 81% of whom are Inuit, and our board has 100% Inuit membership. We have programs in counselling, addiction treatment, health promotion, employment training, and family, children, and youth, with funding support from federal, provincial, and municipal governments as well as from foundations of support organizations.
Our mandate is to provide social support for Inuit as follows: to assist Inuit adjusting to southern urban culture; to provide vocational and employment advice; to assist with family and personal difficulties; to provide counselling and referrals; to help with substance abuse; to give personal and financial management and counselling; and to set up community and recreational programs. We have a long history of working with this population here.
Currently, the urban Inuit population makes up 25% of the total Inuit population of Canada. We are one of the only urban centres that actually have formalized programming. There are a few major pockets of Inuit across Canada in Montreal, Edmonton, St. John's, and Winnipeg, but we in Ottawa are one of the only centres that actually have formalized programming set up for this population. We are also the largest population of urban Inuit in Canada.