Developing Popular Education materials with Indigenous communities about potential environmental hazards & health risks from mining development in northern Saskatchewan

Dr. Madan received a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Institutional Grant to develop popular education information materials on the health risks of hazardous materials.

The Committee for Future Generations, a non-profit coalition in Northern Saskatchewan, has expressed concern that uranium mining development may pose long-term health risks related to exposure to hazardous materials. However, environmental impacts from uranium mining in this region remain under-investigated and are largely anecdotal in nature. Our team proposes to generate popular education information materials in languages accessible to the communities expressing concern, in order to increase public health literacy around this emergent issue. This project is not anti-development – we will not employ a rhetoric to stall livelihoods linked to uranium development, nor employ a rhetoric of public panic. We propose to design an informed, reasoned, and accessible public health literacy document, based on the findings of a systematic literature review, created in response to communities expressing concern. This is a knowledge mobilisation grant, with content co-created in participation with the Indigenous communities where leaflets are intended to be distributed.