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February 21, 2003
Pauktuutit produces health
booklets
Unilingual Inuit women
will have more information on health thanks to Pauktuutit, the Inuit Womens
Association, which has produced three booklets in three Inuktitut dialects,
as well as plain English.
Three years ago, the organization
gathered pamphlets available in health centres across the Canadian Arctic. Members
wanted to find out what information was available specific to womens health.
They found that there was
almost nothing in Inuktitut that informs women how cancer starts, and how to
recognize the beginnings of cancer.
"Based on what information
is lacking, were producing the booklets. And we will be producing more,
although we have not decided on the topics yet," said Veronica Dewar, president
of Pauktuutit.
The booklets cover aging,
cancer and heart health.
Rita Nashook, an Iqaluit
elder who has a medical condition, says the booklets will be helpful. Nashooks
condition requires her to walk with weights on her ankles, even though it hurts
to move.
Leonie Qrunnut, who works
as an elder resource/ researcher for Nunavut Tunngavik Inc.s social and
cultural development department in Igloolik, thinks if the booklets can help
prevent medical conditions that theyll be helpful.
"If it will make people
think twice about something, I think it will help. Not knowing what to avoid
can make you sick," she said in a phone interview from Igloolik.
The booklets will be put
in mailboxes across the North. Expect your copy soon, it could save your life.
The statistics that we hear of so often on having the lowest quality of health
care and the highest rates of health problems, these information booklets could
reduce those statistics.
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