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Baffin region's daycare revolution

Improvements include speaking Inuktitut, local decisions

GREG YOUNGER-LEWIS

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Stephanie Kautaq, 6, plays pin the nose on the clown in Clyde River's school gymnasium as part of National Child Day festivities organized by Arctic College students on Nov. 20. (PHOTO COURTESY OF ARCTIC COLLEGE)

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Beneath the prattle and squeals of toddlers playing games, a quiet revolution is taking place in the daycare centres of the Baffin region.

Centres once run in English are filled with nothing but Inuktitut. Every day, elders spend time with the children in the centres. And more childcare workers are being hired locally.

Baffin's childcare proponents say this is an example of community-based development at its best. And it's not over yet.

Over the next month, childcare centres will take another step toward being self-sufficient in terms of management. This will mark a turning point in the quality of Baffin's childcare, according to one centre director.

Sarah Jaypoody, 49, points to herself as part of the change. When she first took over Saipaaqivik Pairivik, the daycare centre in Clyde River, she said she lacked the required skills.

"I was just a mother and nothing else," Jaypoody recalled in a recent phone interview. "I didn't even know we had to have staff meetings."

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Kurstynn Abbott, 3, tosses a balloon to a bystander during a march in Iqaluit. (PHOTO BY GREG YOUNGER-LEWIS)

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With training, Jaypoody and eight other childcare centre directors on Baffin Island are getting their managerial act in order. By March, they are expected to complete a childcare management program at their local Arctic College campuses.

Jaypoody called the training "a big step" for her and anyone else involved in childcare in the seven communities chosen for the subsidized training - Arctic Bay, Cape Dorset, Clyde River, Hall Beach, Igloolik, Iqaluit and Sanikiluaq.

"I think it will be a benefit to the children as much as the parents and staff," she said.

One of childcare's biggest boosters in the Baffin region said directors like Jaypoody can also expect to have a formally trained board of directors soon. Clyde River will have its first professionally trained board by the end of December.

Training board members and directors will transfer control over decision-making to local groups, said Brian McLeod, CEO of Kakivak Association, the community economic development arm of the Qikiqtani Inuit Association, which funds more than $1.7 million in childcare programs in the Baffin region.

"We're saying we would like you to be responsible for this because it's your organization," McLeod said. "This way it's more bottom-up, than top-down."

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David Aglukark, 4, Chantal Kunuk, 4, and Alannah Maloney, 3, of Tasiuqtigiit daycare in Iqaluit wait for the city's Child Day march to brgin. (PHOTO BY GREG YOUNGER-LEWIS)

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McLeod said the bulk of changes in Baffin childcare began a few years ago when a conference sponsored by his association led to the creation of a regional daycare association. More funds began flowing into daycare, and Kakivak began subsidizing Inuit childcare workers.

However, a lot of work remains to be done, McLeod said, as not all the centres are evolving at the same pace, and new workers need to be trained. Aside from board members and management, Kakivak is also financing college courses for more than 70 students in early childhood education in the Baffin region.

At least one future challenge in Baffin childcare remains. Most childcare workers are women, often leaving children from single-parent households without a male role model.

"It would be nice to see more men," said Elizabeth Cowan, who teaches early childhood education in Clyde River. "But traditionally, in Inuit tradition, women are the main child-keepers."

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