Youth speak out on climate change
It was another eventful day in Pangnirtung. We hit the school to meet up with local youth and to follow their progress in a photo project the grade 11 and 12's are working on related to climate change. You can see Stacey in the photo video taping the excellent youth-focused discussion.
Last night, we also went to the monthly municipal youth council meeting to invite them to take part in the video project we're conducting over the next two weeks. There was lots of support. Indeed, youth in Pangnirtung are "movers and shakers", if you will, and have animated an incredible youth centre in the community, which provides support, infrastructure and programming. These youth positive activities are desperately needed.
It's been very cool working with Qajaaq and Stacey. They have extensive experience working with Inuit youth across Nunavut. Their Inuusivut project seeks to empower and promote mental health amongst youth through video production. They facilitate youth-focused video training and filmmaking. They've been to Pangnirtung a number of times and have a strong following of youth with strong video communication skills. Check out the Inuusivut website for more details: www.inuusivut.com
This evening, we actually met with a small yet very motivated group of youth that Qajaaq and Stacey have been working with over the past couple of years. They were very excited about creating an Inuit youth-focused climate change video. After our workshop-style meeting, the youth decided that they didn't want to make a depressing video about the community and ecological hazards associated with climate change and, instead, wanted to talk about these serious issues in a comedic way. Julie, one of the youth video participants, suggested that we make a silent film on climate change, which was funny yet hard hitting and informative. Everyone agreed this was a good idea. Another participant suggested we call it, ironically, "youth speak out on climate change". No doubt a hilarious title for a silent film.
That the youth decided to make a silent film about climate change is brilliant political commentary. For the most part, in the south, Inuit perspectives on climate change are largely muted by a cacaphony of non-indigenous voices: scientists, environmental groups, governments and others. Hopefully stakeholders worldwide will begin to listen to the important albeit silenced perspective coming from the north.
