Young Inuk gets no support for higher education

By NUNATSIAQ NEWS

My name is Moses Aupaluqtuq. I come from Baker Lake, and I am currently living in Ottawa. I have a seven-year-old daughter and a four-year-old son with my common-law wife.

My partner is Oneida Iroquois from southwestern Ontario. I came south because my partner was expecting our second child, and she was going to attend post-secondary education.

We have since moved to Ottawa to be with the Inuit community and to seek employment. I’ve been accepted into a civil engineering and construction engineering technical program with the School of Advanced Technology at Algonquin College, but have no funding to help pay for my education.

I have written to all the Inuit organizations requesting assistance in paying for my schooling, but have not received any funding assistance or advice from anyone. I wrote to the Nunavut department of education, the Nunavut minister of education, the premier’s office, Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, ITK, NTI and even to the New Credit First Nations of Mississauga to see where I may get help.

All have told me I do not qualify or meet the criteria to meet the funding requirements, or they don’t have funding for Inuit in my position.

No one does. All Inuit and Nunavut organizations and departments have said I don’t meet the requirements to benefit from Nunavut education. The criteria I don’t meet are: I have been away from home for more than a year, and I have not applied to a post-secondary institute from my hometown.

It has been suggested that I go to the Ontario Scholarship Applications Program to get an education loan. I’m embarrassed to say, but I have weak credit right now to be applying for a loan. And the fact that it would be suggested I go and get a loan for my education is not right. I thought the Canadian government stated that all aboriginals are entitled to a free education.

Especially Inuit, when we were brought together to form communities for the betterment of a sovereign Canada. I also thought Nunavut wanted Inuit to get educated to contribute and take on responsibility for us as a people.

I have work skills, life skills, the will and desire to learn, I am not lazy and my ambitions are set to ensure I take care of my family and their needs. I speak well in Inuktitut and English. I have all the right tools to make something of myself and to give back to my community. But I am getting discouraged and my hopes are waning — because I am not getting any help or funding.

I have already been accepted into a post-secondary institute for trades. Not just any trade but a civil engineering trade. Honestly and sincerely though, I am going to eventually have to accept that I am being limited to becoming a second-class citizen in Canada.

Being on welfare is not my idea of making a living. I am of able mind and body to work. Last time I checked I was an Inuk. My mother is Inuk. My father is Inuk. My family members are Inuit. I was raised in Qamani’tuaq as an Inuk. Baker Lake is an Inuit community.

But somebody, the same ones who cannot answer my inquiries, decided I as an Inuk, am not qualified to be granted the same rights as my fellow Nunavummiut. That somebody is nobody. No one organization or department is willing to step up for an Inuk willing to learn.

I fall through the cracks of jurisdictions, policies, procedures, requirements and bureaucratic red tape. There is nothing. There is no one who can help me.

I can’t go home to apply for funding as I don’t have any funds to pay for a ticket home. Even if I could get home, I am not willing to leave my family for a year, which is how long it would take to get the paperwork moved from place to place in order to get an education.

I have the option of taking my family home with me so I can meet the criteria to get funding from the GN, but it’ll cost at least $6,000 in plane tickets for my family to get home, which we can’t afford.

A question from a Inuk to my leaders:

“How can an Inuk who has the will and desire to be educated, get educated?”

Second question: “Do you have any need for an educated Inuk?”

If anyone can suggest to me how I can obtain an education, please contact me at:

Moses Aupaluktuq
1-254 Ste-Monique
Ottawa, ON
K1L 7P7
(613) 749-3977

aputi@hotmail.com
Moses Aupaluluqtuq
Ottawa

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