Greetings:
While I was watching a program on islands of the Pacific Ocean, the three largest islands in the world were mentioned. Little have I ever thought of Greenland, the largest island in the world. I decided to learn a little more about this arctic hunk of frozen land, which had no relevance to the program on tropical paradise other than it's an island.
The name of the article I read online includes the words of the topic title above. The inuit people live off the land and sea but have been uprooted because the government can't subsidize all the tiny villages. The displaced citizens are moved to tenements in the cities. For more than 30 years, the suicide rate in Greenland has been among the highest in the world, mostly among young men, often in "cluster suicides." They are removed from the work and customs of their fathers and grandfathers. Joblessness and drinking are pervasive.
Because there are so few professional mental health workers available and travel is difficult and expensive, some concerned but untrained citizens have volunteered their time and energy to help with suicide hotlines. It is heartrending, the loss of young lives, whether by another's hand or by one's own.