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09/01/2026

Isaruit has taken over Ottawa Uqallagvik CKCU FM 93.1 under the ROOTS program. This will support revitalization of Inuktitut language will showcase our elders strength

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New Year ✨ New beginnings ✨ 📚✏️

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08/28/2026

🔥Your light is breathtaking 🔥
Illustration by Taqqiq 🌕

08/25/2026

…you are connected to something greater than one difficult day 🌼🌊🌦️

08/22/2026

🪷An excellent article on online compassion 🫶🏼Ottawa Inuit circle

A Statement from the Ottawa Inuit Circle: Compassion, Not Mockery

Questions Worth Asking

When someone posts online in the middle of a mental health crisis, what are we actually looking at?

We are looking at a person reaching out. Publicly, awkwardly, sometimes in a way that doesn't make sense to the people reading it, but reaching out all the same. That is what a crisis post is. It is a hand going up. It is someone saying, in the only language they have left in that moment, I am not okay.

Too often, the response is not compassion. It is laughing emojis. It is screenshots shared for entertainment. It is comments about a person's children, about their character, about their worth made by people who know nothing about what that person has survived to get to that moment.

The Question We Should Be Asking

Instead of "what is wrong with this person," Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit asks us to hold a different question: what happened to this person?

A person in crisis online is very rarely just having a bad day. More often they are carrying something - grief, trauma, PTSD, isolation, abuse, loss - that has never been acknowledged, let alone supported. What looks erratic or "crazy" from the outside is frequently the visible surface of an injury nobody around them ever named.

When we mock that person instead of asking that question, we are not responding to who they are. We are responding to our own discomfort. And we are telling them, and everyone else watching, that reaching out in public is a mistake - that the next time, they should stay silent instead.

That silence is where real harm lives.

What Our Community Is Asked to Do Instead

The Ottawa Inuit Circle asks community members, allies, and anyone who sees this kind of post to choose differently:

Do not share it for laughs. A person's worst moment is not content.
Do not comment on their children, their family, or their worth as a person. That has nothing to do with the pain they are showing you.
Reach out privately if you can. A simple "are you okay, do you want to talk" can change what happens next.
If you can't help directly, point them toward someone who can. Crisis lines, community supports, or someone who knows them.
Ask the harder question. Not "what's wrong with them," but "what happened to them, and why has no one asked before now."

Our Commitment

At Ottawa Inuit circle, our work at the underpass and across the community is built on this same principle: people are not their worst moment, and struggle is not something to be punished. We are here, we will help, and we believe every person deserves to be met with support rather than ridicule especially when they are asking for it the loudest.

Ottawa Inuit Circle

Photo: Larry

08/18/2026

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Respect the land. Share the harvest. Sustain the future

08/12/2026

🟠 🔵

Illustrations by Noanikhok ✨