Status of Women committee  Qujannamiik, Madam Chair. Ulaakut, members of Parliament, Chair, Co-Chair, guests and staff. My name is Anita Pokiak, and I'm pleased to be here with you today on behalf of our president, Rebecca Kudloo. I am a member of Pauktuutit Inuit Women of Canada's board of directors f

Status of Women committee  I'm sorry. I'm not familiar with interpretation. If you don't mind, could you just repeat that for me, please?

Status of Women committee  Yes, the hardest is that, number one, Inuit women look after their own families, their grandchildren and their great-grandchildren. They are in overcrowded homes. The other part is that when our elders have to be placed away from home, they are thousands of miles away, and people

Status of Women committee  I'm not sure if I understood you correctly on that, but I will try my best. Pauktuutit does a lot of work all across Inuit Nunangat regarding the three subjects you just mentioned. We have a board member from each region. They all work very hard on those three subjects.

Status of Women committee  Okay. For that one, our priorities would be to have facilities in Inuit Nunangat instead of sending our elders away from the community, and also financial assistance. Thank you.

Status of Women committee  That is something else that we are losing in our culture, with other stuff. It's language and respect of not only Inuit women, but of family as a whole. Elders are our teachers for the younger generation. Removing our elders from their environment, their community, their traditio

Status of Women committee  When I was speaking earlier regarding our elderly women being our teachers, it is in everything from child-rearing to teaching children how to respect, how to live our traditional life, how to do our clothing and how to teach respect for other cultures. It begins at home, and it'

Status of Women committee  Everything begins at home with our culture. We try hard with our language, keeping our culture, learning to sew and stuff. Also, as I said, in the school.... We have to teach our children, because the teaching begins at home and then it spreads out into the community.

Status of Women committee  The main one that I have is that we really need to keep our elders at home. It is so hard when our people are down south. It is financially costly for people to come down here. When elders are down here, elders deteriorate very fast. I'll give you an example. Let's say that some

Status of Women committee  Thank you. I don't really have much experience in housing, but I'll just talk from my experience, which is that, for one, what we are really lacking in the communities for overcrowding—and for our elders to get away from an abusive situation—is a way to lessen that overcrowding.

Status of Women committee  I'll speak for my region. I have six communities within my region. There are two shelters. The main shelter is in Inuvik. Sometimes we have access to that when we need it. There is also one in our community, but that's for battered women. Also, that is used sometimes for the elde

Status of Women committee  Yes, thank you. Regarding nutrition, you're so correct on that. Even for those of us who are not ill, when we, as Inuit, get off track from our diet, it doesn't agree with our system. For somebody who is ill, that makes it even worse. I don't know about Iqaluit, but in my regio

Status of Women committee  Yes.

Status of Women committee  The recommendation would be to have centres within our region and within our communities.

Status of Women committee  The education system is one. Losing our language is another and losing our elders, because our elders are our teachers. I hope I answered your question.