Alaska Wildlife Troopers travel by snowmachine to spread suicide awareness
Troopers Darrell Hildebrand, Jon Siméon et Thomas Akelkok, tous Autochtones, prendront la piste le 17 Mars, au départ de Manley Hot Springs à la fin de l'autoroute au nord de Fairbanks Elliott pour un voyage de deux semaines de 1.500 miles.
Durant ce temps, les trois soldats s'arrêteront dans 19 villages pour parler aux enfants dans les écoles du suicide dans les régions rurales de l'Alaska, où les taux de suicide sont beaucoup plus élevés que dans le reste de l'Alaska, qui a déjà le taux de suicide le plus élevé dans le pays.
Taux de suicide de l'Alaska - 23,1 suicides pour 100.000 personnes - soit près du double du taux du reste du pays et le taux de suicide chez les Autochtones de l'Alaska est encore plus élevé à 35,1 pour cent. Encore plus alarmant est le taux de suicide - 141,6 - pour les hommes autochtones de l'Alaska âgés de 15 et 24, ce qui est le plus élevé de tout autre groupe démographique aux États-Unis.
Article sur le sujet : http://www.newsminer.com/features/health/article_c71bb3d2-8a23-11e2-8fc9-001a4bcf6878.html du 11 mars 2013
Communiqué de presse du 4 mars 2013
http://dps.alaska.gov/PIO/press.aspx
laska Wildlife Troopers Hit The Trail For 1,500-mile Suicide Prevention Crusade
After
last year's successful 850-mile snowmachine trip in the Interior,
Alaska Wildlife Troopers will once again hit the trail, this time
covering more than 1,500 miles in two weeks in an effort to prevent
suicides. This year, Alaska Wildlife Troopers Darrell Hildebrand, Thomas
Akelkok and Jon Simeon plan an ambitious journey to reach adults and
school children in five different school districts and 19 villages in
rural Alaska. Other troopers will join the expedition for sections of
the trek as they wind their way from Manley Hot Springs to Bethel and
back. The trip is expected to start in Manley Hot Springs on March 17
and return March 30. For the first part of the trip, they'll follow the
Tanana and Yukon rivers and revisit some villages from last year's campaign.
Then they'll turn south and travel the Kuskokwim River, visiting
villages between and around McGrath, Aniak and Bethel before heading
back to Manley Hot Springs.Hildebrand, Simeon and Akelkok are armed with personal stories of how suicide touched their lives and recent Applied Intervention Skills Training provided by the Department of Health and Social Services Suicide Prevention Council. The goal is to make sure people know to reach out to someone and talk about their problems - whether it's a friend, a parent, grandparent, teacher or even the troopers. It's a message that Hildebrand and Simeon have carried with them during outreach trips for the past four years - many of them in conjunction with the Iron Dog Suicide Prevention Campaigns. Last year was the first time the three troopers braved subzero temperatures and blowing winds to snowmachine to the different communities in rural Alaska to tell school children and community members there is always hope in the midst of despair and that suicide is preventable. Along the way they'll hand out personalized Alaska Suicide Prevention CARELINE cards.
All three grew up in rural Alaska - Hildebrand in Nulato, Simeon in Aniak and Akelkok in Ekwok - where the suicide rate is an epidemic. The rate in Alaska is almost twice that of the rest of the nation, but Alaska Native males between the ages of 15-24 have the highest rate with an average of 141.6 suicides per 100,000 (2000-2009). As representatives of not only law enforcement, but also Alaska Native men, they use their personal stories as proof that despite all that may go wrong in life, there's still a way to succeed.
