Statistics Canada shows that in 2006 the Inuit population in Ottawa was at 725 and in 2016 it grew to 1280. The Our Health Counts study shows that the Census estimate is grossly under counting Inuit in population surveys and estimates this number to be 4 times higher. Which would mean the actual Inuit population alone in Ottawa would be roughly 5120 as of 2016.

Tungasuvvingat Inuit (T.I) is a charitable social service organization providing direct programs to the Inuit community. Some examples of our programs include: Weekly Food Bank, Community Kitchen, Employment Support, Vocational Training and Upgrading, Housing Support, Patient Navigator, Elder's Tea,, Exiting Prostitution, and Restorative Justice, Mamisarvik Healing Centre.

Our project will create an Urban Inuit Food Cooperative to help sustain the lack of traditional or mainstream meat provided to our Food Bank. Cultural well being is essential to any program that T.I. delivers (following IQ Principles), therefore food is a large part of our community as we gather together to share our catch. Living in an urban environment proves unduly hard for any Inuk to receive caribou, seal, fish, clams, geese, muktak (whale) to eat on a regular basis. T.I. would like to use this money to purchase Inuit food from our local hunter's throughout the year (seasonably available) to help supplement our traditional diets living in the urban jungle. Sustainability of this program will be to sell a quarter of the meat to the working Inuit population so that the proceeds can be re-invested into continued purchasing of Inuit food , also while supporting our hunter's (gas, bullets, time, machine maintenance, food for the dogs)in the North across Inuit Nunaat. Our Health Counts study shows that 70% of the Inuit who reside in Ottawa, earn less than $20,000/annually. The Inuit unemployment rate is almost 9 times the Ottawa average and at the time of this study that rate was 6.6%. T.I. has never been able to offer traditional foods to our community via food bank in this way. Currently we have at the minimum 50-100 families that come out on Wednesday to receive food assistance, and 20 that come out on Thursday's to learn to cook with the foods that they receive (which Inuit traditionally would have never eaten before i.e. beans, peas vegetables).

Being able to supply this type of nutrition will help the Inuit community by bringing us together when we eat, sharing our food with Inuit that need the help to feed their children, but will also help our common home sickness of missing our family, the environment, the cold by having a taste monthly to reconnect by sharing our catch.

The secondary factor of purchasing this food is our well established Community feast held every 3rd Thursday of every month. Community comes out in droves (up to 200 individuals), as they know they will be served Caribou stew, muktak or fish if our organization can provide it. Inuit are only able to eat our foods, when we come together to share.

T.I has one walk in freezer, and five additional freezers in two other locations. So we are well equip to handle a large amounts of shipments for distribution. The larger community is always welcome to our events, and some individuals to come out to meet with us.