SITKA, Alaska Mt. Edgecumbe senior Tessa Baldwin knows all too well about the staggering suicide rate among Alaska Natives.
Baldwin, a 17-year-old from Kotzebue, was 5 when she saw her uncle take his own life. She grew up around the epidemic, which hit home for her again last year when she lost her boyfriend to suicide.
“It’s just always been around me,” Baldwin said on a recent afternoon, seated next to the basketball court at B.J. McGillis Gymnasium. “It’s always been an option.”
Baldwin first went public with her story last April, when she addressed about 500 students at an Alaska Association of Student Governments conference in Cordova. She’s now spoken at three Alaska high schools and has launched “Hope4Alaska,” a nonprofit that is focused on suicide prevention.
The nascent organization was recently buoyed by a $25,000 award from Alaska Marketplace, a competition sponsored by the Alaska Federation of Natives.
Baldwin’s plan to enlist students around the state to increase suicide-prevention activities at Alaska high schools and to push for mandatory prevention training for teachers got the highest possible monetary award from AFN, competing in a category against businesses from around the state.
During her trip to Anchorage for AFN, Baldwin also testified at a U.S. Senate field hearing on Alaska Native suicide. With Sen. Lisa Murkowski presiding, Baldwin, who by age 10 knew six people who had taken their own lives, once again told her harrowing personal story of dealing with the fallout of suicide in Alaska.
The statistics surrounding Native suicide in Alaska are troubling. Figures cited by the Statewide Suicide Prevention Council Baldwin is a youth representative indicate Alaska Native men, between the ages of 15-24, had the highest rate of suicide among any demographic in the country from 2000 to 2009. And a recent federal study showed suicide was the second leading cause of death for Alaska Natives and American Indians ages 10 to 24.
Baldwin is aware of those statistics and is using her personal story to encourage other Alaska students to come forward and discuss the issue.
Baldwin’s work on suicide prevention began through the Alaska Association of Student Governments, which meets twice a year for conferences.
Four years ago, a student on the AASG executive board from Monroe Catholic lost a friend to suicide, and the organization started looking at the issue.
But the effort has picked up momentum is the last 18 months, thanks in large part to Baldwin.
Baldwin, a member of the student government at Edgecumbe since her sophomore year, first told her story to Carol Waters, the AASG executive director.
About this ad
Similar Posts:
- Baldwin-Wallace to offer graduation ‘guarantee’
- Tallmadge district apologizes to parents of students
- City high schools continue to show improvement
- And the most expensive college in the U.S. is …
- Coronado teacher earns journalism certification
