Garth George: Teens find simple way to save lives

Mamaeroa Merito, 16 (left), and Jordi Webber, 17, made wristbands to remind others to value their lives. Photo / APN

An article in our local newspaper, the Daily Post, has given me hope that young people may have found at least part of the answer to New Zealand's dreadful rate of suicide among their number.

It indicated that teenagers may be ready to take ownership of this desperate affliction and are setting about helping one another to seek help for the mental and emotional predicaments in which too many of our schoolkids find themselves.

It is well known that New Zealand has the highest suicide rate among young people of any country in the world.

The latest figures I could find for the 15-24 age group show that the rate in New Zealand is 27.6 suicides for each 100,000 people of that age, compared with 14.6 in Australia, 13.7 in the United States and just 6.7 in Britain.

There are about 500 suicides in this country every year; that's four every three days or nearly 10 a week.

Proposals to deal with suicide, particularly among the young, have lately received widespread coverage in reports presented to the Prime Minister by his chief science adviser, Sir Peter Gluckman.

But two Rotorua high school students could well be ahead of the field.

They introduced their ideas and initiatives to Maori health providers and agencies working to reduce Maori suicide rates at the national 2011 Kia Piki Te Ora conference held in Rotorua. According to a helpful chap at Te Wananga o Aotearoa here in Rotorua, Kia Piki Te Ora means "I hope you get well".

Rotorua Girls' High School student Mamaeroa Merito, aged 16, told the hui that she and her sister, who were discussing the death of a student who committed suicide, wanted to find a solution to the problem.

So they have designed purple wristbands - "because purple is a healing colour" - with the words Kia Piki Te Ora embossed on them for young people to wear as a reminder to talk about issues affecting them.

The wristbands were launched at the hui and will be given away free to young people.

"We wanted to encourage youth to abstain from self-harm and suicidal behaviour," Mamaeroa said. "These armbands are to remind them that they have purpose and encourage them to commit to valuing their young lives."

Suicide, she said, was an issue which was hard for young people to talk about but needed to be brought into conversations.

"It's a hard topic but it's something I would like stamped out. It should never be an option. Young people have limitless potential - they just lose sight of it."

Rotorua Boys' High School student Jordi Webber, 17, told the hui that he saw a few ways to help to reduce suicide among youth - stamping out bullying, abstaining from alcohol and drugs and building strong, supportive family relationships.

"It's important we have loving, supportive relationships with whanau and friends and focus on that so we can talk about these issues," he said.

He couldn't understand why someone would resort to taking his or her own life or indulge in self-harm.

"Suicide is so sad, stupid and final. I have never been in their shoes but I have been through hard times," he said.

"There is so much in life to live for."

The concern shown by these two young people for their peers caused my heart to lift, because probably the most powerful influence on teenagers is peer pressure.

If a majority of teenagers decide that mental and emotional problems are as ordinary as, say, a cut finger or a broken leg, and that suicide is not an option and is decidedly "uncool", then the teen-suicide rate should come down fast.

I fervently hope that the wristbands will quickly find their way into every secondary school in the country, and that parents, principals and staff will encourage their teenage students to make and wear them.

For they provide a minute-by-minute, day-by-day reminder to young folk that it's okay to admit to, and seek treatment for, mental and emotional problems and that life is worth living, no matter how hard it gets.

Commenting on the report, Improving the Transition: Reducing Social and Psychological Morbidity During Adolescence, Professor Gluckman points to growing evidence that prevention and intervention strategies applied early in life are more effective than strategies applied later, and that early childhood is the critical period in which the fundamentals of self-control are established.

He is right, of course, but setting up early-childhood strategies to accomplish this will take time.

In the meantime, let us pray that teenagers themselves take ownership of the mental illness and suicide epidemic confronting them and come to understand that, in the words of New Zealand's top model, Kawerau lass Danielle Hayes, who was also at the Rotorua hui: "Suicide is such a waste of life. Suicide is not the last option."