Seechange Initiative

Founded in 2018, SeeChange Initiative is a non-profit organization that supports communities to create innovative and empowering solutions to address their health and social challenges. SeeChange began with an intention to start a dialogue in order to understand how to better support community-led approaches to the ongoing tuberculosis (TB) crisis affecting Inuit in the Canadian Arctic. Upon first hearing of the TB crisis in Nunavut, Executive Director, Rachel Kiddell-Monroe felt compelled to act. Rachel wanted to find ways to support Inuit efforts to tackle TB. As she puts it, “Experience has shown me that sustainable and effective solutions need the community to lead from the outset.” SeeChange’s ethos is rooted in this founding project, Ikuma tunilavut (We Can Pass the Flame/, ᐃᑯᒪ ᑐᓂᔪᓐᓇᖅᑕᕗᑦ), an Inuit-specific CommunityFirst response to TB in Clyde River, Nunavut. Anchored in strong partnership with Ilisaqsivik Society, SeeChange’s CommunityFirst approach was co-created as a methodology that truly recognizes and believes in the power of communities to be their own agents of change. In May 2020, SeeChange Initiative and Ilisaqsivik Society developed the CommunityFirst COVID-19 Roadmap in response to the global coronavirus pandemic. Created in partnership with the Dahdaleh Institute for Global Health Research and Médicos Sin Fronteras in Latin America, the Roadmap is a planning tool to help at-risk and isolated communities Organize, Prepare, Respond, and Recover. The Roadmap website is available in English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Inuktitut. Like our name, we want to see change. Together with our partners, SeeChange will continue to co-create a world of thriving, well communities.