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Traditional Knowledge: A Blueprint for Change Phase II
Posted 09 April 2012, 3:39 pm NDT
Sivunivut Inuit Community Corporation Inc. is pleased to announce that its second application to the Climate Change and Health Adaptation in Northern First Nations and Inuit Communities Program of Health Canada has been approved. Our proposal, Traditional Knowledge: A Blueprint for Change Phase II, a partnership between Sivunivut Corporation and the Labrador Institute has been approved in the amount of $ 174, 724.11.
This proposal has been developed as Stage II of a three-stage multi-year research project. Stage I was completed as part of the Health Canada's Climate Change and Health Adaptation Program for Northern First Nations and Inuit Communities in 2010 – 2011, and a proposal for Stage III will be submitted to this same program in the next application round.

In Stage I, community researchers conducted surveys with forty-nine Inuit residents of North West River, Labrador, to record local knowledge relating to sensitive animal habitat, ice conditions – as they relate to travel routes, and potable (spring) water sources. This was very successful, and the results of this exercise have been entered into a GIS database. Stage II of the project, with which this proposal is concerned, is designed as a stand alone project, but will build directly off the results of Stage I and feed directly into Stage III.

In Stage II community researchers have two primary goals. First, is to conduct place name focus groups with participants from Stage I, to identify and map local place names. These place names will be added into the GIS database created in Stage I. This task stems directly from recommendations of the Stage I participants, who commented that it was difficult to use the Government generated maps because they did not include the local place names, and there was some concern that this could cause trouble in the future as place names were lost, or transposed to other locations. For the second primary task, community researchers will conduct detailed interviews with a selection of the most knowledgeable participants from Stage I. These interviews will focus on locations that were found to be the most significant to the community in Stage I. The goal here is to record changes that have been witnessed at these locations over time, as well as document the local histories of these locations (i.e. stories, songs, etc. that relate to the location).

As part of Stage II, we also plan to work with Noetix Inc. to establish a satellite ice monitoring system for Lake Melville, and provide training to local community members on how to operate the system and interpret the satellite imagery. This will be very beneficial to the local community members who travel on the lake ice extensively in the winter, and to Sivunivut during Stage III of the Project as we set out to monitor and record environmental characteristics around the lake over the long term.

Sivunivut will be posting job ads for a Community Researcher and a Student Research Assistant to work on this project in the near future.

Here is the Phase II Proposal:Traditional Knowledge - A Blueprint for Change Phase II
 
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