When I think about that, I think about that from multiple levels. I think there are some things that happen at the individual level. I think there are things that happen at the community level.
I can't help thinking about an article in Maclean's on September 18 that talked about Bella Bella, youth suicide in Bella Bella. The fellow's name was Jorgensen and he came from Ontario and he went to Bella Bella, which is a northern community in British Columbia. He went there to try to try to make sure that students were going to school, young people were going to school, but it turned into much more than that. It turned into the young people going with him out on the land, having a reconnection to the land and the identity, and then it started to spread to the families. Then it started to spread to economic development. It's a really great article if you can get it. It's online too.
I see hope there. I see that it didn't take a huge big piece, but it took someone to recognize a small piece and grow it. And when I read stories like that, I'm hopeful.
One of the other things that we've put a lot of energy into is the arts. Sometimes when you look at architecture and sometimes when words don't convey what needs to be said, the arts do. I've seen a number of programs around youth suicide and child development that focus on the land but they also focus on the arts. How do you transform your reality? It may be local artists who do that, who take some of those dismal scenes and change them. I think it's things like that, and supporting the kinds of programs that Jake has been talking about. I think that's what gives us hope, and you're right, we can fall into a pit where there is no hope, and that is the question. How do we get it back? How do we find the pathways out of that?
I don't think there's a singular path, but I think I would believe in the community because there was health there and there will be health again. And that's what I mean by strengths and finding those strengths, and the avenues that are innovative are not just government-funded programs, because the community will know that. Then they'll use those pieces to build, and I think it's incumbent on us to put the structures and the systems in place that enable that kind of revitalization.