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Associate Health Minister Tariana Turia has told a Maori suicide prevention conference that it’s an issue whananu and communities need to make a personal commitment to.
Mrs Turia told the annual Kia Piki te Ora National Conference in Whanganui that the Maori youth suicide rate was 2.4 times higher than that of non Maori youth.
She says while the community can sign up to campaigns of zero tolerance for teenage drink driving, or family violence, or sport rag, it can’t seem to set that same goal to prevent suicide.
She says rather than ask what the Government is doing, people need to ask what they are doing themselves.
Examples such as families coming together to halt a suicide epidemic in Kawerau, and the Raid Movement in Tai Toikerau, show what can be done.
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