Solaar Stradiotto is sending her best hearts to Attawapiskat.
The six-year-old local girl knows little about what is going on in the remote Northern community located nearly 700 kilometres northeast of Thunder Bay.
Attawapiskat generated national headlines earlier in April after the community declared a state of emergency in response to a suicide crisis. Attawapiskat officials said they knew of at least 28 suicide attempts in March, and by the second week of April had reported another 11.
Most of the reported suicide attempts involved youths.
Solaar doesn’t know these tragic details. When her parents brought her to the Waverly Library Thursday to participate in a local Letters for Attawapiskat event, they simply told her people needed cheering up.
And Solaar knows what cheers her up.
“Princesses, and fairies, and rainbows, and hearts.”
At a table just feet away from Solaar, seven adults were also taking part in the event. Instead of drawings, most of the other participants wrote full letters with the intention of making a connection with at-risk youth in the small Northern First Nation community.
Letter writing campaigns like this have been taking place across the country since news of Attawapiskat’s suicide crisis broke. Cities like Edmonton and Timmins have already sent dozens of letters north.
Jayal Chung organized the Thunder Bay event, and said the goal goes beyond sending a single letter.
Chung hopes letter writers can establish serious bonds with some of Attawapiskat’s youth.
“I hope we’ll see, from the people participating in the letter writing, the building of a relationship and a friendship,” Chung said.
Chung and her friends have been following the news out of Attawapiskat closely.
Stories about other writing campaigns, a Facebook group that encouraged organizing letter writing events, and a common interest among her peers inspired Chung to do something.
“Letter writing, for me, has been a very healing way to process things,” she said.
“Writing is a way that we can connect with each other … we want to show support and encourage the youth (in Attawapiskat) to keep going.”