Inuit Women in Business

Background

Research indicates that although there are more women than men in Aboriginal communities, this difference is not reflected in their involvement in the small business economy in Canada’s Arctic regions. Through a Federal/ Provincial/ Territorial/Aboriginal (FPTA) Forum directive, INAC was asked to develop and implement practical measures to strengthen Aboriginal women’s participation in the Canadian economy. One of the resulting strategies was a practical guide for Aboriginal women entrepreneurs. Pauktuutit participated in the development of the guide, entitled Journey to Success – Aboriginal Women’s Business Planning Guide, which was released in English and French in January 2004. With funding and assistance from INAC, Pauktuutit organized the launch of the Inuktitut version of the guide in February 2004 at their annual general meeting in Yellowknife.

In 2005 Pauktuutit entered into a partnership with INAC whereby Pauktuutit received funding support to design, develop and implement Inuit Women in Business.

The Project

The overall goal of this comprehensive strategy is to enable more Inuit women to become self-employed and thus increase economic self-sufficiency for themselves and their families. The focus of this training is to allow participants to explore their readiness to start and maintain a business, as well as to give them practical tools to use in establishing a successful business. The second component is to train local Inuit facilitators who can then facilitate knowledge transfer within the region.

Phase I (2005) Inuit Women for Tomorrow consisted of evolving Journey to Success through the design and development of a three-day business-training workshop specifically geared to Inuit women plus a train-the-trainer module for this workshop.

Phase II (2005-2006) Inuit Women in Business, utilized the material developed in Phase I to pilot two regional business training workshops and the train-the-trainer module for Inuit Women in Nunavut. The workshops took place in Rankin Inlet (Kivalliq Region) and Cambridge Bay (Kitikmeot Region). Partners were Kitimeot Economic Development Corp., and Kivalliq Partners in Training.

Phase III (2006-2007) Inuit Women in Business was delivered to Nunavik communities. The three-day Workshop and Facilitator Training module took place in Inukjuak, Nunavik, on Dec. 3 to 7, 2006. A second workshop was held in Kuujjuaq in Feb. 2007. Partnership assistance was provided by the Kativik Regional Govt., Dept. of Research and Economic Development, and Makivik Corp.

Phase IV & V (2007- 2009) Implementation of Inuit Women in Business in other Inuit communities across Canada. Target Regions are Nunatsiavut, N.W.T (western Arctic), and the Baffin Region of Nunavut.

Objectives

The focus of the strategy is the delivery of training workshops in Inuit communities. There are eight expected outcomes.

1. Create awareness of self-employment options;
2. Increase Inuit women’s business knowledge and skills;
3. Promote self-employment;
4. Promote business capacity building;
5. Increase opportunities for business networks, partnerships and mentoring among Inuit women, and others;
6. Provide opportunities for further expansion of the initiative through train-thetrainer development sessions and
7. Increase the number of Inuit businesswomen actively involved in the economy.

Partnerships

Ongoing partnerships with stakeholder organizations are considered key to the success of this initiative. The intent of the partnerships is to build and reinforce linkages between the partners and Inuit women entrepreneurs in order to provide ongoing support for women entrepreneurs at all stages: pre-business training, business start up and aftercare support for established businesses. Partners could include local government, Inuit organizations, educational institutions, successful businesses, chambers of commerce and others.

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