Shelagh Rogers wins mental health award, honours memory of Labrador Inuk - Action News
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Shelagh Rogers wins mental health award, honours memory of Labrador Inuk

A CBC host has been recognized for championing mental health issues and she is using the opportunity to pay tribute to a Labrador woman who committed suicide earlier this year.

Rogers and Dorothy Angnatok forged a bond when they met in 2011

Dorothy Angnatok (left) inspired Shelagh Rogers who is dedicating a mental health advocacy award to the young Inuk woman from Labrador. (CBC)

A well-known CBC host has been recognized for championing mental health issues and is dedicating her award to a mental health advocate from Labrador who committed suicide earlier this year.

Shelagh Rogers, host of CBC Radio's The Next Chapter with Shelagh Rogers, won the inaugural Margaret Trudeau Award for Mental Health Advocacy in October.

She used that platform to honour Dorothy Angnatok, a young Inuk woman from Nain who committed suicide in January, after struggling with her own mental health issues.

'She was courageous. She was fierce. She was very, very funny."- ShelaghRogers on Dorothy Angnatok

"She will always be a hero of mine and I know for many people, for anybody whose life she touched," Rogers told CBC's Labrador Morning.

"She was courageous. She was fierce. She was very, very funny."

Rogers has suffered from depression for much of her adult life and been a vocal advocate for mental health for over a decade.

She met Angnatok during her first trip to Labrador to visit Torngat Mountains National Park in the summer of 2011. The young Inuk woman was in the park as part of her job as a counsellor with at-risk youth.

"I saw her really inspiring younger kids and getting them excited about going out on the land," Rogers said. "We talked privately about the connection between being outdoors, being physically active and that connection to mental well-being."

Dorothy Angnatok inspired many to 'create a good day,' through her work with at risk youth in northern Labrador. (Jacob Barker/CBC)

It was on that trip that Rogers and Angnatok forged a bond, one based in parton a shared experience with mental illness abond that grew stronger as they metin the intervening years.

"She also talked to me about the demons in her own life and her own mental health struggle and I would say, like me, we both appear to be very sunny people, very cheerful, energetic and sometimes under the surface there can be a completely different story going on."

Angnatok was well known in Labrador for her work with youth and the saying she coined, "Create a good day."

In April, Air Labrador honoured the young Inuk by painting the hashtag #createagoodday on its new Twin Otter aircraft.

Armand Garnet Ruffo and Shelagh Rogers in studio at the CBC Broadcasting Centre in Toronto
Shelagh Rogers (right), host of The Next Chapter with Shelagh Rogers, is seen interviewing writer Armand Garnet Ruffo at the CBC Broadcasting Centre in Toronto. (CBC)

It's a phrase that resonates with Rogers.

"I think about her all the time and I look at a little sign on my desk every morning that says, 'Create a good day,' and so I always think about her."

It's a silence that has to be broken.- Shelagh Rogers on mental illness

Rogers saidshe was honoured to pick up the Margaret Trudeau Award last month.

She said she and Angnatok knew the joys and challenges of mental health advocacy, but it is important that people fight the stigma around mental illness.

"It's a silence that has to be broken and when you hear people coming up and saying, 'Hey, I never talked about this before,' I just think something is uncorked and it's good."

"It's really good that we're talking about it."

With files from Labrador Morning