ICC’s Bill Edmunds Award

On Thursday I was honoured to be presented with the Bill Edmunds Human Rights Award at the ICC General Assembly in Nuuk, Greenland.

Bill Edmunds, who grew up in Labrador, was very involved in the Inuit political world, and heavily involved in the creation of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference and attended its founding in 1977. The award which honours his work is presented once every four years at the Inuit Circumpolar Council General Assembly to an Inuk for their contributions on behalf of Inuit regarding Human Rights issues.

For me this award is very meaningful because it comes from all Inuit in the four countries. It comes at a time when our issues are now at the top of international agendas.

I was honoured and thrilled to receive this award from esteemed colleagues who I have worked with for many years at the international level, previously at ICC, and later at the Arctic Council.

As I mentioned in accepting it, we still have a lot of work ahead of us to work to improve the lives of our fellow Inuit. Our health and wellbeing should be our next major goal. We must do this in order to provide a better future for our children and youth.

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