Helping people help themselves: Kamatsiaqtut Help Line

If you’re depressed and possibly suicidal, help is only a call away at 1-800-265-3333.

Since 1990, the Iqaluit-based Kamatsiaqtut Help Line has been helping callers to choose life.

And this Saturday evening, April 2, the organization will hold its annual fundraising gala at the Frobisher Inn.

The gala will feature entertainment — including Iqaluit singer and songwriter Ellen Hamilton, the Road to Nowhere band and local throat-singers — as well as a short dramatic production from Inuksuk high school students.

Nunavut’s MP and federal health minister Leona Aglukkaq is expected to be the keynote speaker at the gala.

Nunavut Kamatsiaqtut Help Line provides an anonymous and confidential telephone counseling and contact service for people in Nunavut and Nunavik who need to talk about personal problems or who are in crisis.

A bank of about 20 volunteers, who speak English, Inuktitut or French, answer the calls from 7:00 p.m. to midnight, seven days a week.

Although calls are kept confidential and callers can remain anonymous, log books of the Kamatsiaqtut’s calls have also been used in research into suicide .

Kamatsiaqtut, which sits on the board of the Nunavut Embrace Life Council, also trains other groups and individuals and offer workshops.

Suicides continue to rock Nunavut communities in 2011.

Although Kamatsiaqtut has no figures on the numbers of suicides it has prevented, the help line volunteers often hears back from people who are grateful for their intervention, said Kamatsiaqtut board president Sheila Levy.

Sometimes the help line volunteers dispatch immediate help to suicidal callers.

But Levy said Kamatsiaqtut volunteers hope they hear from people in distress before they get to that point.

As for why the suicides continue to take so many lives, Levy suggested some suicides and suicide attempts are linked to alcohol abuse “which encourages young people to do things they wouldn’t otherwise.”

The continuing high number of suicides in Nunavut points to the need for redoubled efforts and more support to Kamatsiaqtut.

“We need to continue positive efforts like this one,” Levy said.

Last October Nunavut’s health and social services department tabled its suicide prevention strategy which pointed out that death rates by suicide in Nunavut, especially among Inuit boys and men, are many times higher than the Canadian average.

Inuit women are just as likely as Inuit men to attempt suicide, though they account for fewer completed suicides.

The strategy said Nunavummiut have been exposed to repeated suicide so often, they’ve come to accept the territory’s high rates as normal — though few talk about it in public.

To reduce the territory’s shocking rates of suicide, Nunavut needs an “urgent, aggressive response” that brings together all levels of government, all organizations and all residents, recommended the strategy’s special working group.

Tickets to the April 2 fundraising gala are still available from Levy by calling 979-5281. The ticket price of $80 also includes a donation to Kamatsiaqtut. Doors open at 6:00 p.m..