A National Tragedy & Disgrace for Canada - The Alarming Rate of Suicide Among Aboriginal Youths

"We've had another youth hang himself yesterday and much prayer is needed to fight against any ensuing copycat suicides and attempt from other youths. The youth group is devastated by the sudden suicide and equally concerning is the enormous attention this youth is receiving for the act.

After all is said and done, the only thing we can do is continue to pray and beg the Lord for intervention.

Thank you for prayers."  From a Youth Pastor in a Canadian Reserve

It was such a tragic piece of sad news and a big shock for me when I opened my email and found this sitting in my inbox. I was in tears as I thought of the parents' enormous loss and sadness. As a parent, I could not imagine greater suffering than experiencing the death of your own child.Yet, youth suicides are happening at an alarming rate and frequency in native reserves across Canada. According to a recent article reported in the Globe and Mail - Canada's leading national newspaper:

"...the infant mortality rate on aboriginal reserves is 14 deaths per 1,000 births – nearly double the national average? How can it be that life expectancy among the Inuit is 15 years shorter than the Canadian average? Can it really be possible that suicide rates among Canada’s aboriginal youth are up to 11 times higher than the national average?"

The plight of our aboriginal people, the hardship and discrimination faced by them is a national tragedy and disgrace!

Since native reserves are usually quite far away from the cities,  most Canadians do not have a lot of contact with our aboriginal people. So when we hear tragic news like that,for most Canadians, it is just another news item reported on the evening TV news broadcast.  

Many years ago when I first heard of the unusually high youth suicide rates and the numerous challenges facing young people in Canada's native population, I wondered about the causes of these tragedies. As I heard  more about the stories of these youths in our nation's reserves, I started to have a burden and desire to do something for them.

A few weeks ago, we attended a presentation by a youth pastor from a reserve about his commitment and work in that community. This youth pastor's work challenged us and touched many of our hearts. Plans and ideas of lending a hand to this reserve are starting to germinate.  We thank God that finally my husband and I will have this opportunity to serve God and our aboriginal youths. Hopefully, with God's grace and mercy, we will have good health and strong bodies which will enable us to commit our time and effort to connect with and help our first people.

We look forward to working with our short term mission team and serving the youths in one of the reserves in western Canada.

I was invited to do workshops for youths in Cambodia and I did a few of them on communications and building positive self esteem. These workshops were quite well received and the young people there told me that what they had learned helped them. I hope that I can take my experience working with Cambodian youths and in Ontario and offer my services to youths in the Canadian reserves in the near future.

R.T.
Toronto, Ontario
p.s. I was saddened to learn today that at Cross Lake, Manitoba, there were six suicides within two weeks at that community and 140 students are currently on suicide watch. How tragic is that! What is our government to help these people?