Anaana Project
One of the challenges identified at the Qulliit Nunavut Status of Women Council meeting in Rankin Inlet in March 2005 was a general lack of awareness of our organization’s mandate and objectives. A second challenge identified was the need to connect with Inuit women and women’s groups across the territory. It was seen as an important way to increase the grassroots participation of Inuit women and to foster the growth of local community level women’s groups.
With those challenges identified, the Council determined that one of its top priorities was the development of better networking systems across the territory. To that end, the Council developed a new three-year initiative, the Anaana Project.
For the first stage of the Anaana Project, each Council member made a commitment to “adopting” or becoming the “mother” (anaana) to 3-5 different communities throughout the territory. Each Council member will initiate contact by phone to women’s groups and/or individual women in their “daughter” communities to begin fostering personal connections with their daughter communities. Council members are very excited about this project. We believe that this project will facilitate better lines of communication between the women in our communities and Qulliit Nunavut Status of Women Council. This improved communication will better enable the Council to identify issues of concern and represent the needs and voices of all women in Nunavut. The anticipated launch of this project is January 2006.