Project Partners: Kativik School Board; Saputiit Youth Association; Uvikkait Dome Youth Center; Kativik Regional Government-Youth Employment Services.
Project Collaborators: Nunavik Regional Board of Health and Social Services (Planning & Programming); Northern Village of Kuujjuaq.
Community researchers: Jessica Tooma (2011); Olivia Ikey Duncan (2012)
Financial support : Brighter Futures; Canadian Institutes for Heath Research; Fonds québécois de recherche sur la société et la culture; Institut national de santé publique du Québec; National Network for Aboriginal Mental Research; Nunavik Regional Board of Health and Social Services; Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières.
The goal of Youth Use Your PhotoVoice! was having youth in Kuujjuaq voice their opinions and expressing their ideas to improve Nunavimmiut youth mental wellness by taking pictures and discussing them together. Often, youth are not directly consulted on issues that are important to them by those who make decisions. Photovoice is a way for people including youth to express themselves in creative ways, to have their voices heard, by taking pictures on their community's strengths and needs and discussing and reflecting upon them together in a group format. It also a way for them to voice their ideas for social change and their solutions to the issues they face to others through the pictures they have taken. Youth Use Your PhotoVoice! is an important part of a participatory research project focused on understanding and improving youth mental wellness in Nunavik, entitled “Nunavimmiut youth’s concepts of mental wellness: a community-based participatory research” which began in 2009 with Georgia Vrakas and Louise Fournier.
The exhibit showcases select pictures taken by the Youth Use Your PhotoVoice! participants in 2010, 2011 and 2012.
For more information, please contact Georgia Vrakas (Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières – campus de Québec) at 418-659-2170, extension 2833.
