November 6, 1998

A shelter in Kuujjuaraapik for Cree and Inuit women

Though it's just a small village, Kuujjuaraapik is home to two bars. The result? Alcohol-fueled family violence, and the need for a battered women's shelter.

JANE GEORGE
Nunatsiaq News

KUUJJUARAAPIK — It's a common knowledge among people who live here that violence often follows heavy drinking.

With two bars in town, where alcohol flows nightly, the neighboring Cree and Inuit communities who live by the mouth of the Great Whale River experience their share of alcohol-related problems. Some, inevitably, spill over into the home.

During the month of September, the Kativik Regional Police recorded four incidents of conjugal assault in Kuujjuaraapik.

"There's a big need for a shelter here," said Danielle M. Sioui. "It's the people who have suffered who understand the need."

Since August, her five-woman committee has been trying to get the Inuit and Cree communities and regions to back a shelter for battered women in Kuujjuaraapik.

The eight-bed shelter would serve all women and children in Whampagoostui and Kuujjuaraapik in need of a safe place to go. It would also offer support and counseling for troubled families or individuals.

The committee has already found a suitable location for the shelter, in Kuujjuaraapik's former nursing station, but it will cost $20,000 a year to rent this building from the Quebec government.

So, the committee has approached the Makivik Corporation, the Cree councils, the two municipal governments, both regional health boards, businesses as far away as Val d'Or, and even local residents for financial assistance.

They've also asked for donations of food, supplies, equipment and toys.

To raise community consciousness about the project, they've held various contests. One was a competition among local residents to choose the shelter's name, Tunngavik, and another contest for school children, who have been asked to submit drawings that tell something about the shelter.

Sioui said the committee still feels the shelter needs more community support. She invites anyone interested in the project to call her at 819-929-3640.

But she's worried that some residents are afraid that she is "just another non-native," trying to organize something for them.

Sioui, who is, in fact, a member of Quebec's Wendat First Nation, said that her home community has similar problems with violence in the home.

(The Wendat people are the descendants of the Huron, or Wyandotte people. In the 17th century, they were expelled from their original homeland in what is now Simcoe County in central Ontario.)

Sioui remains hopeful that Tunngavik will become a reality sometime in early 1999, after renovations to the future shelter's building are completed.

Nunavik already has two shelters for battered women, in Kuujjuaq and Salluit.