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Pijunnaq is a new multi-year funding program, intended to provide community organizations with financial stability and flexibility, allowing them to plan for the future, respond to immediate needs, and grow in new ways. Each year, the cohort collectively decides how $300,000 is distributed among participating organizations. Beyond funding, Annauma will provide tailored non-monetary support along the way.
Annauma is proud to introduce the following organizations joining our first-ever Pijunnaq cohort:
- Red Fish Art Society – provides welding training, job readiness, and life skills programming for at-risk young men in Cambridge Bay
- Tumikuluit Saipaaqivik Inuktitut Daycare – the only fully Inuktitut-language daycare in Iqaluit, offering culturally grounded childcare rooted in Inuit language and daily country food
- Piruqatigiit Resource Centre – supports Nunavummiut with neurodiversities and their families through assessment, alternative schooling, and essential services
- Agguaq Collective – revitalizes Inuit sewing knowledge through collaborative museum research and intergenerational cultural reclamation
Within just a few hours of meeting together for the first time in June, offers of collaboration were already on the table: Piruqatigiit offered a shed built by youth in their pre-trades program for Tumikuluit's storage needs, and Red Fish offered to make unique welded signage for each of the organizations.
The group discussed what consensus means to them and what they hoped to achieve together over the next three years. Agguaq Collective offered a fitting metaphor: it’s like preparing for a cabin trip together, where you ask the foundational questions to the group travelling together — what do we need, what do we want, how do we get there? That conversation led the group to a shared statement to guide them through the years ahead:
"Consensus is a lived practice, rooted in Inuit values, where every voice is heard and collective needs guide shared goals."
The organizations described the process as humbling and refreshing, and spoke of their appreciation for everyone's willingness to work together. It's a glimpse of what's possible when the sector works with each other instead of alone.
Even though Annauma only requires one reconvene meeting a year, the group chose to meet informally for coffee and a check-in after summer, and to keep in touch by email in between. Annauma looks forward to the relationships, learning, and impact that the next three years will bring.
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