The Rideau Hall Foundation (RHF) is proud to announce Ajuinnata: The Mary Simon Catalyst for Mental Wellness, a new long-term project created in collaboration with Her Excellency the Right Honourable Mary Simon and inspired by her deep commitment to mental health and wellness across the Canadian Arctic.
“Ajuinnata” is an Inuktitut word meaning “never give up” or “persevere,” reflecting the strength, resilience, and community leadership at the heart of the initiative.
Announced on May 29 during a special gathering at 50 Sussex Drive, the initiative was unveiled alongside Her Excellency the Right Honourable Mary Simon in the presence of distinguished guests including the Right Honourable Mark Carney, Prime Minister of Canada, and the Right Honourable David Johnston, former Governor General of Canada. The gathering convened leaders, partners, and collaborators to recognize the importance of collective action in advancing northern mental wellness.
The initiative builds on insights gathered through the Governor General’s Mental Health Learning and Listening Tour, launched in 2024 with support from the RHF. Throughout the tour, community leaders, practitioners, organizations, and people with lived experience spoke about the importance of culturally grounded, community-based mental wellness supports rooted in relationships, lived experience, language, and local knowledge.
Rather than delivering services directly, Ajuinnata will focus on strengthening the ecosystem of organizations, peer support networks, and community leaders already doing this important work across Inuit Nunangat and the broader North.
Through funding, capacity-building, gatherings, and relationship-building opportunities, the initiative aims to help communities connect, learn from one another, and strengthen approaches that reflect local priorities and realities.
For RHF, this work is a natural extension of both our longstanding relationship with Her Excellency and our experience supporting national ecosystems that are community-led, collaborative, and rooted in local strengths. Through initiatives like Catapult Canada and the Indigenous Teacher Education Initiative, RHF has helped connect organizations, strengthen networks, support knowledge sharing, and create opportunities for communities to learn from one another while advancing shared goals.
Ajuinnata builds on that same approach: supporting communities not by leading from the outside, but by helping strengthen the relationships, support systems, and collaboration that allow local leadership to thrive.
The need for this work remains urgent. Across the North, geography and limited local infrastructure can make access to stable, culturally safe mental health care more challenging in some communities. At the same time, communities continue to lead innovative and deeply grounded approaches to healing and wellness.
As the initiative develops, consultations with northern organizations, advisors, and communities will help shape its long-term direction and priorities, including funding for community-led programming supports, culturally grounded wellness approaches, peer support capacity-building, and opportunities for gathering and shared learning.
Ajuinnata is about connection, and strengthening the people, relationships, and community leadership that support mental wellness across the North.
As Her Excellency said in her Installation speech, “addressing mental health and wellness… is hard and necessary work, but think of the possibilities for stronger, healthier and more prosperous communities.”
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