Suicide pact by 13 young aboriginal people, including nine-year-old.

[dotr]

http://www.680news.com/2016/04/12/police-break-up-suicide-pact-of-13-young-people-in-attawapiskat/

A suicide pact by 13 young aboriginal people, including a nine-year-old, has been thwarted on a remote First Nation in northern Ontario where local leaders say they’re so overwhelmed by the suicide crisis that extra police officers have been called in from nearby communities.

 

[dotr]

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...understand-the-suicidecrisis/article29583059/

Attawapiskat: Four things to help understand the suicide crisis

After 11 people tried to kill themselves, a remote Ontario First Nation has declared a state of emergency to prevent deaths among young people. Here’s what has happened, what’s being done about it and some important context to understand it

The Canadian Press and Globe staff Last updated: Tuesday, Apr. 12, 2016 1:48PM EDT

 

[Portabella]

I don't think its possible this many have mental health issues, something is terribly wrong, and it NEEDS to be addressed, our youth is screaming out for help....What needs to change? What can we do about it? this is a horror....they are just starting their lives....IMHO

 

[dotr]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/attawapiskat-suicide-crisis-emergency-debate-1.3531829

The House of Commons will hold an emergency debate this evening over "the gravity" of the many suicide attempts on the northern Ontario First Nation reserve of Attawapiskat.

Members of Parliament will address the crisis during the debate scheduled to begin at approximately 6:40 p.m. ET and expected to last until midnight.

The request for an emergency debate comes as Attawapiskat Chief Bruce Shisheesh fears more young people will try to harm themselves while the community tries to grapple with the crisis after declaring a state of emergency Saturday, following reports of 11 suicide attempts in one day. There are also reports of over 100 suicide attempts and at least one death since September.

rbbm.

 

[JeannaT]

Well, if there are 100 suicide attempts with only one death, these kids aren't trying. Which is a good thing. It sounds like it's kind of the "thing to do", like so many very odd "things to do" that teenagers do during that time of their lives.

Our school district - and many others, and many communities at large - don't publish deaths by suicide. Other accidental or deaths by illness get the full public awareness, and articles in the paper and official school district memos sent out asking for prayers for the grieving family, but not suicides.

If you recognize it, more will do it. We had 3 suicides in a nearby middle school in a month a couple years ago, and had to place parent volunteers around the school and in the restrooms to keep from losing the whole school. Kids get an idea that they'll get attention - even if it kills them, literally - and so they'll do it.

 

[Gigi-G]

I don't think its possible this many have mental health issues, something is terribly wrong, and it NEEDS to be addressed, our youth is screaming out for help....What needs to change? What can we do about it? this is a horror....they are just starting their lives....IMHO

Oh gosh this is so sad. To all doing as a mass suitable suicide. Is this a 'cult' code of honour.
I mean. I've not heard of any 'mass suicides'
Unless they've been in a clan, cult etc....
Either way those survivors need extensive Mental Health support.
I hope the help gets to them asap.. 😓

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...understand-the-suicidecrisis/article29583059/
View attachment 91865
Attawapiskat: Four things to help understand the suicide crisis


The Canadian Press and Globe staff Last updated: Tuesday, Apr. 12, 2016 1:48PM EDT

Sent from my SM-G925F using Tapatalk

 

[dotr]

http://cnews.canoe.com/CNEWS/Canada/2016/04/13/22623458.html

TORONTO -- A rash of suicide attempts by young people on the Attawapiskat reserve appears to be a case of so-called suicide contagion, a chain reaction triggered within the community by abominable living conditions and a shared sense of despair and hopelessness, experts say.

Attawapiskat's chief declared a state of emergency Saturday after the remote northern Ontario community recorded 11 suicide attempts so far this month and 28 others in March. Community leaders also intervened after subsequently discovering that 13 other young people on the reserve -- including a nine-year-old -- had made a pact to take their own lives.

"As its name implies, (the idea of suicide) becomes contagious," said Robert Olson, head of information services at the Centre for Suicide Prevention. "It's often defined as a suicide cluster, multiple suicidal behaviours in a time frame and within a specific geographic area."

Choosing to end one's life is seen as a way to escape severe and unrelenting emotional pain, Olson said Tuesday from Calgary. "If someone sees their relative or, say, their good friend and they seemingly have solved the problem, it perhaps incites in them the idea, hence the contagion element."

 

[dotr]

Updated Wednesday, April 13, 2016 4:30PM EDT
http://www.cp24.com/news/idle-no-more-protesters-stage-sit-in-in-toronto-for-attawapiskat-1.2857705

TORONTO -- A group of aboriginal rights activists staged a sit-in at the Toronto offices of Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada on Wednesday, saying they were acting in solidarity with a remote Ontario First Nation struggling with a suicide crisis.

snip>

There have been several crises in Attawapiskat in recent years, including annual spring flooding, contaminated drinking water and a condemned schoolhouse built on the site of a massive diesel spill.

Wednesday's demonstrators identified themselves as grassroots protesters and said they wanted to see improvements in Attawapiskat, as well as in other First Nations communities.

"To wait until an emergency situation is shameful. So that's why we're here," said Carrie Lester. "People need to wake up."

 

[tarabull]

5 more Attawapiskat youth attempt suicide, chief says
April 16, 2016

http://www.cbc.ca/news/aboriginal/attawapiskat-youth-attempt-suicide-1.3539564

 

[tarabull]

‘A state of perpetual mourning’: What’s behind the ‘clusters’ of suicide attempts in aboriginal communities
April 15, 2016

http://news.nationalpost.com/news/c...of-suicide-attempts-in-aboriginal-communities

 

[tarabull]

Neskantaga First Nation in 3rd year of state of emergency over suicides
April 16, 2016

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/thunder-bay/carolyn-bennett-neskantaga-attawapiskat-1.3539039

 

[dotr]

[video=youtube;xzIxiYacXPU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzIxiYacXPU[/video]

 

[Montjoy]

As horrible as these stories are, there should be a constant 'state of emergency' for the entire territory of Nunavut, where the suicide rate has long been ten times the national average. And beyond the statistics, the stories are horrifying -- for instance, a pre-teen child kills herself, and then her grandmother kills herself, out of a (perhaps mistaken) sense of responsibility. Awful stuff, and largely ignored by the south.

 

[ebonydarkness]

I honestly wonder what methods they're trying if so many attempts only result in one single death.

 

[Tulessa]

I don't think its possible this many have mental health issues, something is terribly wrong, and it NEEDS to be addressed, our youth is screaming out for help....What needs to change? What can we do about it? this is a horror....they are just starting their lives....IMHO

Drugs and alcohol. Meth is a dominating factor when it concerns our First Nation's people.

 

[Tulessa]

This is an older report, but reliable.

New America Media’s Jacob Simas and Two Rivers Tribune‘s Allie Hostler joined forces to examine how the nation’s rural methamphetamine epidemic has devastated the Hoopa Valley Indian Reservation in Northern California, as well as the nation’s American Indian population in general. The Indian Health Service does not track drug abuse, and hard tribe-by-tribe numbers are hard to come by, but the scope of the problem is clear.

http://healthjournalism.org/blog/2012/06/meth-and-other-drugs-overwhelm-reservations/

 

[Tulessa]

Alcohol is the Single Most Dangerous Drug on the Plant and is legally sold in almost every town, city and state in the country and even on some reservations in the country. Alcohol abuse in the Native American community is epidemic and the leading cause of death of the tribal youth than any other drug.

http://www.theindianreporter.com/blogs/ernie_salgado/indian_killers.html

 

[tarabull]

Suicide can be contagious...

http://www.google.ca/search?sclient.....0...1c.1.64.tablet-gws..1.2.469._RylmemH5Tk

ETA: especially amongst teens!

 

[tarabull]

Attawapiskat youth fight for survival: ‘We are all scared for them’
April 17, 2016

http://ottawacitizen.com/news/natio...all-scared-for-them?google_editors_picks=true

 

[otto]

Well, if there are 100 suicide attempts with only one death, these kids aren't trying. Which is a good thing. It sounds like it's kind of the "thing to do", like so many very odd "things to do" that teenagers do during that time of their lives.

Our school district - and many others, and many communities at large - don't publish deaths by suicide. Other accidental or deaths by illness get the full public awareness, and articles in the paper and official school district memos sent out asking for prayers for the grieving family, but not suicides.

If you recognize it, more will do it. We had 3 suicides in a nearby middle school in a month a couple years ago, and had to place parent volunteers around the school and in the restrooms to keep from losing the whole school. Kids get an idea that they'll get attention - even if it kills them, literally - and so they'll do it.

I hope these children get the attention that they are seeking.