 September is observed annually as Suicide Prevention Month. This year, it was commemorated under the FEMA, creating hope through action. During an appearance on NTN's morning updates, Naomi Grandison, family life educator in the Bureau of Health Education, revealed that many St. Lucian families are affected by suicide. Based on 2019 statistics, St. Lucia's suicide rate stood at 7.9 for 100,000, well above many countries, the region. It goes to show that for me, this is my personal opinion, that there is something wrong. There is something that we need to shift. There is something that needs to change. Because the overall statistic worldwide is 100 out of 100, and that will be about 703,000 deaths by suicide. So it shows that one, persons are suffering with mental health challenges, with coping skills, with hopelessness, with services, inadequate services, to deal with those things. With the heaviness of the impact of stigma, which is that you, I don't want to deal with you, cast you on a side for want of a better world, or feeling that you would be judged or not given certain privileges, otherwise, because you declare that you have some sort of mental health problem, even if it doesn't mean that you have lost touch with reality, or even if it doesn't mean that you're psychotic. So herein lies the problem. It doesn't always have to be somebody who is severely depressed to commit suicide. It could have been a school or movement thing. But for the most part, there are signs and persons are suffering. St. Lucian artist George Zenkwa, best known as Platinum George, shared his experience managing depression and suicidal ideations throughout his life. He said that after years of constant struggle, he found solace in God. Zenkwa is now using his experience to assist others. Going through the music industry made it worse again in terms of now I'm investing in music, but yet still I'm not getting any returns. Then you would see that I have a family to maintain. I have bills to pay. Then spending a whole bunch of money, and you're not even making half of this. It basically had me on a cloud of darkness. My transformation came through. I got invited to church. Imagine I'm the kind of person that I always go to church. No matter what you invite me, I would go. I'm not that kind of person who's picky in religion because I am trying to get that emptiness filled. Nurse Grandison indicated that mental health care plays a pertinent role in combating depression and decreasing St. Lucian's suicide rate. I want to say that again, the skills building, the love for each other, the learning how to communicate, the learning how to get help, knowing where to go to get help. You understand knowing how to love yourself is all part of what can help to mitigate the actual completing of suicide, even if some people may be a passion, thought other people are haunted with it for a very long time. So I just want to add to that. If we can skill build and encourage our children to build certain skills and let them know the importance of communicating, expressing your emotions similarly to rush in your tea for the morning, clothing yourself, beving. You need to be able to communicate and talk and offload. It is a part of your overall well-being. And I think that can help to avoid. And I think in our society, I just want to say this, and again this is my personal opinion, in our society we're just too judgmental. And being judgmental is extremely toxic. It's like St. Croix was saying, you're an alcoholic and you're drinking more alcohol and you're going to places with more alcohol. Then you have somebody who's sick, maybe depressed or somebody who's suicidal, and you're feeding them poison. You're feeding them poison with your judgmental attitude that, oh, you do not love God, oh, you're crazy or whatever. And we think like that because we don't know better in some cases. We think that it's going to help the person to change, but it only serves to bring a person deeper into that pit.