Lower Kuskokwim School District students are pitting cultural and personal strengths against adversity.
Students connect over a game at the Sources of Strength training in Bethel, Alaska on Oct. 10, 2023.
The students were all from grades 6 through 12, and they were there because their communities had identified them as leaders capable of learning the lessons of a suicide prevention program called Sources of Strength. They will be responsible for beginning the lessons of the day home to their peers. “Grief. The past couple of years it’s been more grief. Understanding grief. They’ve all been affected by death,” he said.
The wall above Biela’s desk is covered in artwork and pictures of students he has counseled and befriended. He pointed out several who have died from suicide, then pulled one image off the wall and looked at it for a moment: “I knew him since he was one year old,” he said, before gently laying it down on his desk..
Students connect over a game at the Sources of Strength training in Bethel, Alaska on Oct. 10, 2023. He said after the presentation, people in their village rallied around them. “After that, everybody was coming to us, talking positive to us, making us laugh,” he said. The brothers are 19 now, so they can’t play in games with the team, but they can practice with the others. For Colby, basketball is another source of strength.Meghan Crow, the lead social worker for the district, said the program is a good fit for the area. It is aimed at suicide prevention, but Crow said that the resilience building students learn is applicable in other areas of their lives as well.
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