After running three successful editions of its Nallikaaqtaka — My Choices program for people dealing with substance use issues, Nunavik’s health board is planning three more sessions this year. A five-day program, it aims to offer a safe space where participants can get away from alcohol or drugs and be involved in traditional on-the-land activities. The most recent session ended May 29 in Kuujjuaq.
This program is for “any person who wishes to do something about their consumption,” said Elizabeth Murray, a planning, programming and research officer for substance use and addiction at the Nunavik Regional Board of Health and Social Services. “The aim is to destigmatize it,” she said. The on-the-land activities, mixed with traditional clinical consultations, are for people who want to stop or pause their consumption — or just get away for a while — and be accompanied while they do it.
Murray calls it a “targeted prevention program for addiction.” The program model is used in other Indigenous communities in Canada, in this case adapted for Nunavik. This is the third time the health board has hosted the program, following one organized in Inukjuak and the other in Kuujjuaq last summer, which served as pilot projects.
Because the program is intensive, only 12 participants can sign up at a time. In Kuujjuaq. they were accompanied by 17 other support people such as cooks, guides, interpreters, workers and some children.
All but three were Inuit. “It is an immen.
