Arctic Inspiration Prize hands out $2.4 million to northern innovators – Nunatsiaq Online
February 01, 2018
Prize founders announce $60 million donation to prize’s trust fund
OTTAWA—“Where did our men go?”
Simeonie Nalukturak recalls a group of women in his hometown of Inukjuak asking that question at a public meeting in the 1990s.
The Nunavik community had just experienced more than a dozen suicides in the span of a month and the community was in crisis.
That meeting went on to spur the creation of the Unaaq Men’s Association, a support group to promote leadership, self-esteem, healing and traditional knowledge among Inukjuak’s young men.
Some 20 years later, a group of a dozen or so Inukjuak men crowded the stage at the Arctic Inspiration Prize gala held in Ottawa last night when their association was awarded $500,000.
