Hi again. It's great to be here. My name is Louisa Yeates. I'm vice-president of the Qarjuit Youth Council and I'm going to continue on. Thank you.
With regard to regional components, education within Nunavik starts with early childhood development within the day care system. Our children are taught at a young age in their mother tongues. These children hold the legacies of our futures, whether they are aware of it or not. As they transfer from day cares to the regular school sector, they are taught mainly in Inuktitut for the first three years.
As education is essential for everyone, we seem to be lacking in adequate teachings for these children to be able to develop and establish a future for our region. We often speak about being able to acquire support from the parents and the guardians, but to be honest, we are in a state of decolonization and have a generation that was so damaged by the residential school system that these impacts are passed on without intent.
With a high school dropout rate of almost 95%, we need to revive and remobilize our region and stimulate change in the perception of education. Inuit youth have voiced their concerns on how important it is for them to be able to connect and fill the gap that seems to be growing with the generations before. As they hold the key to our traditional and cultural learnings that our youth aspire to, it is clear that to be able to gain back some identity and confidence, youth need to be able to learn about where they came from and who they really are to be able to build a solid foundation on which they can build the rest of their lives. We need more support in the sense that we need to have more spaces and places to be able to hold and deliver these services.
Nunavik's inadequate housing situation is also a major factor in our region's issues that relate to the risk factors and high suicide rates. Along with the high cost of living, it is not easy for our youth to have no options when it comes to their living situations. Sometimes they are caught up in overcrowded, not-well-maintained dwellings, and it becomes overwhelming as the pressure to just survive is immense.
As well, when abuse is in a home and there's nowhere to go, youth often turn to anything, mostly negative outlets, to help them cope. With a population of over 13,000 in Nunavik, we only have 3,000 social housing units. With high costs of living and rent increments of 8% on a yearly basis, surviving is strenuous and tiring, and it's often difficult to see past those walls. Nunavik is in need of assistance to relieve the stresses and risks that the lack of sufficient housing brings to our people. We need additional support to raise our communities above settling for the least. There needs to be more funding allocated to the housing needs and high cost of living in the north.
Since the signing of the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement in 1975, our population has quadrupled in size. The resources needed are not keeping up with the drastic population changes and the high cost of living. In most chapters of the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement, these issue are not on a par with our current situation. Whether it is jobs to feed our families, land management to create businesses, or quality improvement in education, health, and all aspects of community development, we need to be given resources that are easily accessible for our regions.
On health care, the Nunavik Regional Board of Health and Social Services has been able to take major leaps and bounds when servicing our region's growing needs. They have identified factors contributing to suicide risks, established reach-out strategies, and formed a Nunavik suicide response plan. It's still in the works, but it's a major step in moving forward to be where we need to be, yet it still seems light years away.
I'm going to pass it to Alicia to conclude. Thank you.