First Nations community grappling with suicide crisis: 'We're crying out for help'

 As Canada’s small community of Attawapiskat grapples with more than 100 recent suicide attempts, focus turns ‘hundreds of years of trauma’

People take part in a candlelight vigil Attawapiskat. Photograph: Chris Wattie/Reuters

 Stephanie Hookimaw, right, and her niece Karrisa Koostachin pose next to memorial photos of her daughter, Sheridan Hookimaw, who committed suicide in October. Photograph: Laurence Mathieu for the Guardian

Laurence Mathieu-Léger in Attawapiskat and Ashifa Kassam in Toronto-
Saturday 16 April 2016 

For two days, Stephanie Hookimaw drove frantically down the dirt roads that line Canada’s Attawapiskat First Nation, looking for her 13-year old daughter.

She stopped in at 16 homes in the remote community, hoping to find some trace of her child. “I was just crying while I was driving around looking for her, praying at the same time, asking God to protect her.”

Her search ended at a police cordon. “She took her own life,” Hookimaw said, her voice shaking as her eyes welled with tears. “I was shocked. She was never suicidal.”

Her daughter, Sheridan, had been suffering. She was bullied at school and suffered health issues including arthritis and asthma. She longed for her family to have their own home, ever since sewage contamination forced them to live with 15 others in a three-bedroom home.

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