A big thanks to Samantha Beattie and the Guelph Mercury for highlighting some of the work our Inuit Mental Health and Adaptation to Climate Change (IMHACC) team has been doing in Nunatsiavut around the linkages between climate change and mental health in the North.
Climate change, mental health studied | guelphmercury.
To add to this article, a digital story created by Melva Williams from Rigolet, explains how climate change is effecting mental health and well-being in the region right now.
Over the past 6 years, I have had the immense pleasure and privilege of working with amazing folks from Nunatsiavut, Labrador. This work has changed my life, and every once and awhile, there is something that emerges from the projects on which I work that allows me to share with others why Nunatsiavut is such a beautiful and unique place in Canada.
This past year, one of my colleagues and good friend, Joanna Petrasek MacDonald from McGill University, began to work in Rigolet as part of the Inuit Mental Health and Adaptation to Climate Change (IMHACC) and Inuit Knowledge for Adapting to the Health Effects of Climate Change (IK-ADAPT) projects examining youth resilience in response to a changing climate and environment and the subsequent impacts on health and wellbeing.
This May, Joanna had the opportunity to travel to Rigolet to work with students and staff from the Northern Lights Academy school, the Rigolet Inuit Community Government, Marilyn Baikie and Inez Shiwak from the ‘My Word’: Storytelling and Digital Media Lab, and Jordan and Curtis Konek from Konek Productions in Arviat, Nunavut.
As part of this project, youth in Rigolet had the opportunity to engage in a two-week participatory video project to create a film about growing up and living in Rigolet. This workshop provided the students with training in video design, camera techniques, interviewing skills, and editing.
The workshop concluded with the completion of a wonderful, moving, informative, and humorous 17 minute film, edited entirely by the students and a community screening.
As Joanna Petrasek MacDonald explained,
The film is about the lives of the youth in Rigolet and full of footage of all kinds of awesome activities that they do in and around town. Not one seat at the screening was empty, there were lots of laughs and smiles, and the young filmmakers were glowing with pride. Since the screening we have received an overwhelming amount of positive feedback from the students, parents, teachers, and community members.
Check out this amazing video, and enter into a world of growing up in one of Canada’s remote Inuit communities, on the beautiful Northern Labrador Coast.
For a ‘behind the scenes’ look at the making of the Life in Rigolet participatory video, check out Joanna’s video:
This project would not be possible without the amazing support and guidance of the following organizations, groups, and individuals:
Finally, a very special thank you to Jordan and Curtis Konek, from Konek Productions, for lending their video expertise and making this all possible!
Happy to share a new video introducing the Inuit Knowledge for Adapting to the Health Effects of Climate Change (IK-ADAPT) project, a multi-year initiative working in partnership with Inuit communities, policy organizations, and academic institutions across Canada on using Inuit knowledge for to assist with adapting to the health effects of a changing climate in Northern Canada.
The video was filmed, edited, and produced by Lesya Nakoneczny from the Climate Change Adaptation Research Group at McGill University.
I have the great pleasure and privilege of working with an amazing team of researchers from each of the five Inuit communities of Nunatsiavut, Labrador, on a project examining the impacts of changes in climate change on mental health and well-being.
The Inuit Mental Health and Adaptation to Climate Change (IMHACC) project is a community-based research initiative that works collaboratively with Inuit in Nunatsiavut to discover how changes in the land, snow, ice, temperature, weather, wildlife and vegetation is impacting Inuit livelihoods and lifestyles, and subsequently, is negatively affecting mental health and wellness.
We have just released a video providing an overview of our project.
The video was filmed, edited, and produced by Lesya Nakoneczny from the Climate Change Adaptation Research Group at McGill University.
In response to Canada’s upcoming position as Chair of the Arctic Council, with Leona Aglukkaq (Federal Minister of Health) at the helm, myself and the members of the Climate Change Adaptation Research Group at McGill University authored an open letter for immediate circulation. As we say in the letter,
Canadian leadership of the Arctic Council is an opportunity to showcase the tremendous potential of the Canadian North; it is also an opportunity to examine ourselves, as Canadians and as a country with a proud and enduring Northern culture, for the purposes of reflection and change. We tender this letter as researchers, but more importantly, as Canadians with deep and abiding respect for the Arctic and its residents.
***
As Canadians, we feel it is particularly important that your leadership of the Arctic Council be based on an understanding of the realities and impacts of climate change in the North, and on an appreciation of the rapid changes in temperature, snowfall patterns, and sea ice extent throughout the Canadian and circumpolar regions.
CCARG Letter to Arctic Council
I am happy to share a policy brief compiled by Kassandra Hamilton, one of our former student research assistants for the Changing Climate, Changing Health, Changing Stories project. This brief outlines the potentials and opportunities for using digital storytelling as a health research method and a way to effectively communicate health information within policy circles. As you will see from the brief, our team has found this method to be an excellent way to engage the story-creators in the research process in a culturally-appropriate manner, and to engage the story-viewers in the lived experiences and emotions of the storytellers. Read the brief.
Check out this video about the amazing work being conducted by my colleagues at McGill in the Climate Change Adaptation Research Group and the University of Guelph.
Happy to share the recent publication of two new articles emergent from the Changing Climate, Changing Health, Changing Stories project research from Rigolet, Nunatsiavut.
‘From this place and of this place’: Climate Change, Health, and Place in Rigolet, Nunatsiavut, Canada. Social Sciences and Medicine, 75(3), 538-547. Click here for paper.
Storytelling in a Digital Age: Digital Storytelling as an Emerging Narrative Method for Preserving and Promoting Indigenous Oral Wisdom. Qualitative Research. Doi: 10.1177/1468794112446105 Click here for paper.
The lovely folks at Pioneer Radio at CFRU interviewed me last week about the impacts of climate change on mental health, and the research that I’ve had the pleasure of working on since 2009 with the Rigolet Inuit Community Government, Sherilee Harper, and Victoria Edge.
If you’re interested, follow the link below and click on the January 16th episode (I come in around minute 30…but the entire episode is great). Thanks to Margie Taylor for the interview! Pioneer Radio: Cold
Or listen here, directly from the Pioneer Radio Wordpress site: Pioneer Radio: Cold
Some great news for mental health work in Inuit communities! This is of particular interest to me, as my recent work examines the connections between climate change and mental health and well-being. From discussions with Nunatsiavut health workers (Labrador, Canada), more funding in the health sector — particularly for mental health initiatives — is greatly needed in Inuit regions in Canada.
