Impoverished tribe struggles to stop surge in teen suicides [View all]

http://apnews.excite.com/article/20150413/us--teen_suicides-indian_reservation-326f7e32c6.html

Apr 13, 7:39 PM (ET)

By REGINA GARCIA CANO

PINE RIDGE, S.D. (AP) — The people of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation are no strangers to hardship or to the risk of lives being cut short. But a string of seven suicides by adolescents in recent months has shaken this impoverished community and sent school and tribal leaders on an urgent mission to stop the deaths.

On Dec. 12, a 14-year-old boy hanged himself at his home on the reservation, a sprawling expanse of badlands on the South Dakota-Nebraska border. On Christmas Day, a 15-year-old girl was found dead, followed weeks later by a high school cheerleader. Two more young people took their lives in February and two more in March, along with several more attempts. The youngest to die was 12.

Students in the reservation's high school and middle school grades have been posting Facebook messages wondering who might be next, with some even seeming to encourage new attempts by hanging nooses near homes. Worried parents recently met at a community hall to discuss what's happening. And the U.S. Public Health Service has dispatched teams of mental health counselors to talk to students.

"The situation has turned into an epidemic," said Thomas Poor Bear, vice president of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, whose 24-year-old niece was among two adults who also committed suicide this winter. "There are a lot of reasons behind it. The bullying at schools, the high unemployment rate. Parents need to discipline the children."


FULL story at link. Also: Native American Tribe's Battle Over Beer Brews: http://www.npr.org/2012/10/12/161764201/native-american-tribe-s-battle-over-beer-brews (Only 11 residents in a town that sells 4 million cans of beer)




In this Feb. 27, 2014 photo, more than 100 people walk to Wounded Knee during the liberation anniversary of the famous massacre on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Somewhere between 16,000 and 30,000 members of the Oglala Sioux Tribe live on the reservation which includes the county with the highest poverty rate in the U.S., and some of the worst rates of alcoholism and drug abuse, violence and unemployment. (AP Photo/Rapid City Journal, Chris Huber)