Pulitzer Center Update

This Week: Canada's Suicide Crisis

May 04, 2017 | Newsletter
By
Tom Hundley
Members of the Attawapiskat First Nation community gather in the St. Mary’s cemetery to visit the graves of loved ones. Despite the loss, there was a sense of connection and strength from the families, a testament to the resilience of the Cree people. Image by David Maurice Smith/Oculi. Canada, 2016.

Members of the Attawapiskat First Nation community gather in the St. Mary’s cemetery to visit the graves of loved ones. Despite the loss, there was a sense of connection and strength from the families, a testament to the resilience of the Cree people. Image by David Maurice Smith/Oculi. Canada, 2016.

Canada's Troubled First Nation

David Maurice Smith

The remote northern Ontario town of Attawapiskat, population 2,000, made the news last year when it recorded 100 suicide attempts in little more than six months. Most of the victims were young people under age 25. Grantee David Maurice Smith traveled to the First Nation community late last summer. What he documents in these compelling images for The Washington Post is the remarkable resilience of Canada’s indigenous people in the face of acute economic adversity and a long history of neglect.

Kony at Large

Dave Herbert

Last week—and a billion dollars later—the US military began pulling out of the hunt for Joseph Kony. Grantee Dave Herbert, reporting from Uganda, looks at the failed effort to capture the leader of the murderous Lord’s Resistance Army. 

La France Profonde

Sarah Wildman

France’s political establishment has united against the candidacy of Marine Le Pen. Will it be enough to stop her? Grantee Sarah Wildman, writing for Vox, looks at the deeper implications of Le Pen’s ascent.