NAC Celebrates Pink Shirt Day
NAC’s Nunatta campus turned pink on Wednesday, February 26th with students, staff and faculty all clad in pink shirts and accessories to take a visible stand against bullying on campus and within our communities.
Pink Shirt Day is a national movement that raises awareness about bullying and harassment that occurs in workplaces, schools and online. The Pink Shirt movement began as a small act of kindness when two teenagers, Travis Price and David Sheppard, of a Nova Scotia high school teamed up and wore pink shirts to school in support of a student who had been bullied for wearing pink the day before. Pink Shirt day is an opportunity for NAC students and staff to unite together and acknowledge the physical and mental toll bullying and harassment can take on individuals, their peers, and their families, and make positive changes on campus for the future.
The theme of this year’s Pink Shirt Day was “Lifting Each Other Up”. NAC Student Services hosted an assembly in the cafeteria for all students, staff and faculty with the aim of coming together as a community to celebrate and support each other. Frosted pink cupcakes were handed out as local comedian Peter Autut opened the event with hilarious stories about his experiences moving to Iqaluit from Chesterfield Inlet and being a student on campus. Autut reminded us all that humour does not need to be derogatory or at another person’s expense, and that positive storytelling can create healing laughter.
Student Counsellor, Maxine Carroll hosted the show in English, with Programs Manager, Mary Akulujuk, in Inuktitut. Following their affirmations that NAC is here to support students’ safety and create more connections for students to engage positively with each other, there was a Pink Shirt Talent Show. Students and staff were invited to come up and share any thoughts, stories and songs “open mic” style. Eric Tikivik from the G.R.E.A.T. Program shared traditional songs, Jenna Merkosak from the Nursing Program played songs on the guitar, Ekpakhoak Robinson from NTEP shared stories from his home community of Cambridge Bay, Selina Windsor also from NTEP sang, and even NAC staff Kyle Gaudreau and Bibi Bilodeau joined in with singing. President Pauloosie Suvega shared his personal accounts of discouraging bullying as a long-time hockey coach and reinforced that NAC is a supportive community where everyone is free to learn and have access to a caring environment regardless of where they are from.
NAC has a zero tolerance policy for any discrimination or targeted harassment on campus but it takes a united community to end all forms of bullying. In her assembly address, Maxine spoke about how NAC has small classes and that staff and students will often be spending their entire academic life together so it’s important to look out for each other. Bullying isn’t always visible or intentional so being aware of our actions, noticing when people are absent, encouraging them to get more involved and to acknowledge those around us, are small actions we can do to make the campuses more positive. Just like the students in Nova Scotia who wore the original pink shirts, these small actions of kindness, like sharing your lunch with others, can go a long way to make NAC a safer and more nurturing environment for everyone.