Inuit Youth to Participate in Nunavut-Based Health Careers Camp

The week of February 12-16, 2018, 20 Inuit students from six communities across Nunavut will participate in a Health Careers Camp. The camp’s home base will be at Nunavut Arctic College(NAC) in Iqaluit, with camp activities taking place at Qikiqtani General Hospital and in NAC’s simulation lab and classrooms.

Students from Arviat, Naujaat, Taloyoak, Clyde River, Pond Inlet, and Iqaluit—accompanied by a mentor from their communities—will have an opportunity to:

• Learn about the many possible health careers they could pursue;
• Experience hands-on clinical skills, such as putting on casts and suturing;
• Meet health-care professional role models from Nunavut;
• Receive safeTALK training from Nunavut’s Embrace Life Council; and,
• Build a career planning portfolio, mapping out needed courses for the careers that interest them, in alignment with the Aulajaaqtuut element of the Nunavut school curriculum.

This pilot project is intended to promote health careers among Nunavummiut and is based on a similar health career camp for youth designed by the Northern Ontario School of Medicine(NOSM) in Northern Ontario.

The camp has been planned by a steering committee consisting of the Northern Ontario School of Medicine, Nunavut Arctic College, Nunavut Tunngavik Inc, the Government of Nunavut’s Department of Education and Department of Health. Logistics and evaluation have been coordinated by Qaujigiartiit Health Research Centre.

For information about the Nunavut Health Careers Camp, please contact:

Jennifer Wakegijig
Manager, Program Development
Northern Ontario School of Medicine
705-662-7296 or 705-936-6080 (cell)
jwakegijig@nosm.ca

Sidney Horlick
Research Assistant & Camp Coordinator
Qaujigiartiit Health Research Centre
867-975-2425
sidney.horlick@qhrc.ca