Suicide on Pine Ridge Reservation
A Young Lakota Boy. (Not John)
Suicide is epidemic on the Pine Ridge Reservation. The teen suicide rate is four times the national average.
Tuesday night another child on the reservation hanged himself. His name was John and he was twelve years old. He loved the Dream Center, the ministry of our partners, Wings as Eagles. God had plans for him, plans to give him a hope and a future. Yet, John couldn’t see that hope or that future because of all the hopelessness around him on the reservation.
This is the third child in a month that has committed suicide on the reservation.
That is three children too many.
I have lived in a medium sized village in Ghana providing health care. We had no electricity, running water, supermarkets, and minimal transportation, children went to open air public schools. Some childrens clothing was ragged, most went bare foot. Yet they seemed to have a positive attitude and I never came upon a suicide case of any kind in my area.
When I come home I hear of kids continuing to bring guns to school and use them, commit suicide. Twenty years before I lived on the eastern Navajo Reservation for a private catholic school. Adult alcoholism was huge, avg.annual county income was 3,000 dollars, many accidental deaths due to being drunk (adults), but no suicides of kids that I can recall.
Now I hear about suicide rates all over the USA among kids climbing so I did some research and came upon this YouTube video: >> I AM SORRY – I CAN THINK OF NO GOOD REASON FOR A WEBMASTER TO DISABLE THE RIGHT CLICK FUNCTION. – I SIMPLY WANTED TO COPY SEVERAL URL’s AND QUOTED TEXT< BUT I DON'T HAVE ALL NIGHT. <<<
Best wishes.