PRESS RELEASE
Marama Fox
Māori Party co-leader
9 September 2016

Māori Party secures $2m for youth suicide prevention

On the eve of World Suicide Prevention Day, the Māori Party is pleased to see that a number of communities are accessing funds it secured for Māori youth suicide prevention.

“We feel the pain of whānau and communities who’ve been ripped apart from suicide and we applaud those who’ve put their hand up to do all they can so others don’t suffer the same dilemma,” said Māori Party co-leader Marama Fox.

The Māori Party secured from the Government about $2 million, which has been allocated to 28 organisations throughout the country to run Māori youth suicide prevention initiatives this year and next year. The focus of those initiatives will be on cyber bullying and takatāpui.

“Maori youth do more social networking online than any other group in this country, but cyber bullying is hurting too many of them as is the discrimination of our beautiful takatāpui from some quarters of society,” said Ms Fox.

“Our rangatahi are two and a half times more likely to commit suicide than non-Māori youth. This is an abhorrent statistic and unacceptable this is why the Māori Party pushed to get this funding.”

The Māori Party is also pleased to know that youth must be actively involved in the design and delivery of the funded initiatives.

“We’ve got a lot more work to do but for now, this funding will provide a level of support to communities in need.”

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