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Carol Devine will speak about SeeChange’s work with Inuit communities and partners in Nunavut responding to the disproportionate tuberculosis (TB) epidemic across Inuit Nunangat. By the 1950s, at least one-third of the Inuit population in Canada was infected with TB, and thousands were sent south for treatment, without consent. Since 2018, SeeChange has supported Inuit-led initiatives addressing TB while recognizing the intergenerational harms and mental health impacts of colonial-era TB evacuations. Carol will highlight a novel program developed in response to Inuit Elders’ recommendations, in which healing visits brought TB sanatorium survivors and youth together to support intergenerational healing, knowledge transfer, and efforts to eliminate TB today. She will also briefly touch on SeeChange’s collaborative scoping review examining TB, climate change, and One Health in the highly climate-impacted circumpolar region.

Carol Devine – SeeChange Initiative

Carol Devine is social scientist, researcher, and writer. She is Chief Operating Officer of SeeChange Initiative, a social purpose organization in Canada that supports communities in their health responses, their way. With Inuit Elders and youth from Nunavut, SeeChange co-led an Intergenerational Healing Journey to a former TB Sanatorium in southern Ontario, recognizing the impact of colonial-era TB evacuations on the survivors, their families, and communities, and how acknowledging this difficult and complex history can contribute to healing, TB awareness, and prevention today. Carol is co-author of Exploring the intersection of Tuberculosis, Climate Change and One Health from a Community Response Perspective: A Rapid Scoping Review and Context Analysis with partners at SSHIFTB, Dahdaleh Institute for Global Health Research (DIGHR), ¿ì²¥ÊÓƵ, and University of Toronto.

Carol is a Community Scholar at DIGHR, ¿ì²¥ÊÓƵ, an International Fellow of The Explorers Club, and a member of the Humanities and Social Sciences Working Group of the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR). She was Lead of Humanitarian Action on Climate and Environment (HACE) Initiative of Médecins Sans Frontières Canada (MSF) and of Climate Smart MSF, a large-scale project of MSF’s Transformation Investment Capacity to support this global medical humanitarian organization’s decarbonization. Carol represented MSF at COP23 in Egypt on humanitarian responses and nature-based solutions, and was the Canadian liaison for MSF’s Access to Essential Medicines Campaign.