World Suicide Prevention Day: Making a difference
Darwin Region Indigenous Suicide Prevention Network community walk
Darwin Region Indigenous Suicide Prevention Network community walk
On World Suicide Prevention Day on 10 September the Australian Government announced a range of new measures aimed at strengthening its efforts to tackle suicide in the community.
The Government announced it will:
- continue and expand the membership of the Australian Suicide Prevention Advisory Council until 2014
- develop Australia’s first Indigenous Suicide Prevention Strategy and
- establish a new Indigenous Suicide Prevention Advisory Group.
This year’s World Suicide Prevention Day theme was “make a difference today”.
Members and supporters of the newly formed Darwin Region Indigenous Suicide Prevention Network marked the occasion with a walk in the Top End city. They wore red both as a warning about the issue of suicide and to indicate compassion.
Vice chairperson Ngaree Ah Kit, who lost her little brother to suicide four years ago, said creating the network was a positive way for her and her family to deal with their loss and immense grief.
“It’s still early days for the organisation,” Ms Ah Kit said. “Currently our focus is on creating networks with service providers and setting up bereavement support. Unfortunately, there is a really big community of survivors out there. Ultimately, we want to eliminate suicide in our community. That’s a huge task but we don’t want to just lower the rate, we want to stop it — full stop. I don’t want anyone to go through what we did.”
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