A Way From Despair
Decoding the past for a brighter future
"I started to get calm and I spread my arms out," Freddie Edmund, 16, remembered. "I got out. I remembered what the elders said."
Paula Ayunerak, an Alakanuk elder, said the program encouraged communication during its activities, whether they were out ice fishing or berry picking. Part of the research project's strength was to let Alakanuk focus on Yup'ik culture to teach the protective factors.
"This was different," she said. "People actually doing a Yup'ik way of living are more successful in living soberly than others. It made a big difference."
Now Mohatt and Allen want to see if Alakanuk's success can be taken to other communities. The National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities has awarded the project another $2.9 million to continue testing the prevention theories in Alakanuk and the other Southwestern Alaska community and expand the program, using the Qungasvik, into three Alaska Native communities in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta.
Alakanuk will still be a part of it. In fact, the community insisted that Oney hire someone to continue with the program outside of UAF's involvement.
Back in the tribal hall, the elder man rose from the group to speak.
"Muskoxen circle their young to protect them from harm," he said.
He had the youth stand in a tight group.
"Elders, find a youth and say something nice about him or her."
The elders surrounded the knot of young people. The adults praised them one by one.
"You always help your mother," said one. "You are going to be a good hunter," another said.
The youth were surprised to hear the praise because they didn't realize so much was known about them. The elders had always seemed to be strangers to them.
When they were done, an elder man told the youth to stand in the center of the room while the adults held hands in a circle around them. The elder began to pray.
"Lord, bring healing, strength and power so we can overcome the hardships we face," he said. "Now everyone, pray for the same thing as hard as you can."
Murmurs of petitions turned into earnest crescendos.
"When I count to three, everybody stomp, stomp, stomp!" he said. "One, two, THREE!"
The echo of snow boots and tennis shoes reverberated across the wood floor.
"Now laugh hysterically, as loud as you can, as if you are laughing at someone," he said.
And they did.
The spirit of suicide and abuse heard the prayers, stomping and laughter, became ashamed and left the small community.
The acts bound the group together and they began to feel healing and strength to help others.
"We can talk about it now," said Josephine Edmund.
"We have to."
Diana Campbell, ’91, ’93, is the communications specialist at UAF’s Center for Alaska Native Health Research. She was the first in her family to receive a university degree since her grandfather, John Fredson, the first Athabascan to earn a college diploma, graduated in 1930 from Sewanee. Debbie Alstrom, Art Chikigak and Gunnar Ebbesson, ’99, ’02, contributed to this story. Photos courtesy of CANHR.
UAF alumni featured in this story: Paula Ayunerak, '97; Josephine Edmund, '03
Qungasvik: A prevention instruction book
The Qungasvik (pronounced CUHN-ahs-vik) represents a new approach to a manual for intervention and prevention of suicide and substance abuse. Villagers from Alakanuk developed 20 of the 36 chapters themselves. Another Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta community developed the rest. This is not the way it's usually done, but is exactly what Elluam Tungiinun's researchers intended.
Encouraging the community to decide for themselves how they could best teach the protective factors that people said either helped them avoid substance abuse or achieve sobriety is how community-based participatory research is supposed to work, said Gerald Mohatt, CANHR's director and one of Elluam Tungiinun’s researchers.
Alakanuk chose to create lessons about ice fishing, ice safety, seal hunting and other traditional activities as ways to teach the People Awakening Protective Factors.
For instance, telling young people how to observe ice conditions also teaches them the Yup'ik concept of ellangneq, or how to be aware of things in order to be safe.
But teaching about ice safety demonstrates a deeper lesson about alcohol abuse. Like bad ice, alcohol can fool you into a false sense of safety but in the end hurt you, the elders told the students. You have to educate yourself about alcohol abuse and plan how you will make good decisions, they explained.
Most intervention manuals include a program to help people teach strategies to prevent alcohol and drug abuse. Based on what the community wanted, the Qungasvik evolved into a toolbox (qungasvik is Yup'ik for toolbox). It allows users to pick the intervention activities that will work best for them. However, a requirement of the program is that all the protective factors must be taught, Mohatt said.
The manual will now be tested in three other Yukon-Kuskokwim communities as part of a five-year program funded by the National Institutes of Health. The program will be rigorously reviewed to ensure its effectiveness.
"People have to respect this," said Lawrence Edmund of Alakanuk, speaking of the Qungasvik. "It's like a seed that has been planted."