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University of Ottawa partners with Makivik Corporation on a striving program to keep youth in school through hockey
OTTAWA, October 4, 2011 — The University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Health Sciences is proud to announce a new partnership among the Faculty’s Indigenous Health Group, the Makivik Corporation and the Nunavik Youth Hockey Development Program (NYHDP). The NYHDP uses hockey to encourage Nunavik youth to stay in school and develop positive life skills.
A multidisciplinary research team from the School of Human Kinetics (professors Alexandra Arellano, PhD, Tanya Forneris, PhD, François Haman, PhD, and Michael Robidoux, PhD, and master’s students Hassan Saeed, Corliss Bean and Cédric Lafrance) will join Makivik and the NYHDP in bringing together experts on exercise and sport science, energy metabolism, ethnology, sociology and psychology to assess the benefits associated with youth participation in the program. The research team will, among other things, measure how youth respond to the program in terms of personal development, academic success and improved levels of physical activity and fitness.
“We are thrilled that one of our interdisciplinary research teams has been chosen to work on this very important community project,” said the dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences, Dr. Denis Prud’homme. “This is an extraordinary opportunity for professors and students from our School of Human Kinetics to contribute to the success of a thriving program that promotes education and healthy lifestyles through sport.”
By combining Makivik’s knowledge, the NYHDP’s motivational power and the expertise of uOttawa’s professors and students, the partnership will help develop and sustain this meaningful program, which supports healthy communities in Canada’s northern regions.
Managed in collaboration with former NHL player and Olympian Joé Juneau, the program is offered to all 14 indigenous communities in Northern Quebec, from Akulivik to Kuujjuaraapik and Kangiqsualujjuaq.
“We are very privileged to be associated with such an institution to help us further our knowledge and understanding with respect to the achievements and progress of our youth development program from an academic and wellness point of view,” says Juneau, coordinator and instructor for the NYHDP and a 2011 recipient of an honorary doctorate from the University of Ottawa.
About the NYHDP
The Nunavik Youth Hockey Development Program (NYHDP) is a major initiative that Nunavik leaders from the Makivik Corporation, the Kativik Regional Government (KRG) and the Kativik School Board (KSB) undertook five years ago to link minor hockey with education. In every community and school, this crime-prevention initiative promotes physical activity, healthy living and, above all, the importance of education.
About Makivik
Makivik Corporation is an Inuit-owned economic-development company created after the signing of the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement in 1975. Its mandate includes political representation of the 9,800 Inuit of Nunavik and the administration of funds stemming from the Agreement
