The World Association of Non-Governmental Organizations (WANGO) awarded the 2003 inaugural Environment Award to ICC (Canada). Sheila Watt-Cloutier, Chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference (ICC) traveled to Washington D.C. in October 18, 2003 to accept this prestigious award for ICC.
We were taken from the land less than a century ago. We have as a people gone from the snow age to the space age in one generation. For Inuit, our challenges are many, our children are committing suicide in despair; our communities are ravaged by alcohol and drug abuse. Yet we will survive, we are not powerless victims, we will use the land to bring our culture back–if it can be almost lost in one century, we will use the next one to heal it. The land and its animals–this connection–will save our children and our culture from extinction.(WANGO Acceptance Speech)