Join us / Suivez-nous

Categories / Catégories

Archives

Ottawa’s Inuit community celebrates life

Hello,

Today, World Suicide Prevention Day, Ottawa’s Inuit community held  it’s 9th annual Celebrate Life event to bring attention to a hard reality that affects all Inuit families in Canada. Inuit have the highest suicide rate in Canada, and one of the highest in the world. Suicide accounts for 40% of the deaths among Inuit youth, a rate that is 5 times higher than in the rest of Canada.

As Maatalii Okalik, the newly elected President of the National Inuit Youth Council, explained: “We are here to celebrate the beauty and uniqueness of our Inuit culture and to recognize the strength we have as a people and to build on this strength.”

Close to 100 persons gathered on Parliament Hill at lunch time to take part in the celebration.  Here are a few moments that were captured.

IMG_9916

Maatalii Okalik, the newly elected President of the National Inuit Youth Council

The performance by first and second year students from Nunavut Sivuniksavut:

IMG_9902

IMG_9899

IMG_9893

IMG_9894

Riit Mike

IMG_9904

Kristen Kownak and Riit Mike

IMG_9906

Kristen Kownak and Riit Mike

IMG_9903

Country-gospel performer Etulu Aningmiuq, from Pangnirtung, said the opening prayer and performed a couple of songs.

IMG_9909

IMG_9911

IMG_9936

Terry Audla, president of Inuit Tapiriit Katanami, also addressed the audience and accepted a $25,000 check from Bell Let’s Talk Community Fund.

IMG_9920

Charlotte Qamaniq and Charlotte Carleton demonstrated traditional throat singing.

IMG_9922

IMG_9923

IMG_9933

IMG_9934

The celebration closed with a performance by singer-songwriter Charles “Saali” Keelan accompanied by drum dancers Archibald Kadloo and Moses Koonoo.IMG_9963

IMG_9944

Charles “Saali” Keelan

IMG_9958

Archibald Kadloo

IMG_9960

Moses Koonoo

IMG_9964

Thank you all for such an inspiring event. May your message of hope continue to spread and change lives.
France Rivet

IMG_9969

Leave a Reply

You can use these HTML tags

<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>