Campaign front-foots fight with suicide
A young Kiwi woman tells Tim Newman about 12 people who took their own lives. South Island scenery and hobbit-filled hills have become the star attraction for Chinese wedding photos. Amanda Cropp reports.
JESS Purdue’s world was changed forever in 2010 as a 17-year-old, when her ‘‘on-again off-again’’ boyfriend took his own life.
‘‘Up until that time in my life I had been naive and innocent, and I just had all that stripped away from me,’’ she says.
‘‘We’d just had a massive fight and broken up, afterwards he texted me and just said ‘hey can we talk’. I didn’t reply – and that was it.’’
Purdue has more reason than most to speak up about New Zealand’s suicide epidemic.
During the past eight years, the 24-year-old from Invercargill has known 12 people who have died by suicide.
Yesterday, she joined Kiwis from both ends of the country to kickstart a campaign to boost awareness of the issue.
At both Cape Reinga and Bluff, 579 pairs of empty shoes were put on display, a stark illustration of the number of Kiwis who committed suicide in 2016.
Similar displays will make their way across both islands over the next month, culminating in a final event held outside Parliament on September 10.
Yeswecare.nz, which is organising the shoe campaign, wants the government to hold an urgent inquiry into the state of New Zealand’s mental health, and set a suicide prevention target.
In this year’s budget the Government set aside $224m for mental health services, including a new $100m social investment fund.
Health Minister Jonathan Coleman said he was open to a suicide reduction target, but did not say there were any plans for an inquiry. ‘‘Suicide is a whole-of- society problem and there needs to be an increased focus on resilience and mental wellness.’’
At the time of the release of their mental health package, Government stated an inquiry would be a ‘‘blunt bureaucratic exercise that would slow down the progress already being made’’.
According to statistics provided by Coronial Services, suicide rates have remained steady at 12 per 100,000 over the past 10 years.
While this figure is above average compared to the World Health Organisation’s global figure of 10.7, New Zealand’s teen suicide rate is the highest in the developed world. Maori are the worst effected ethnic group (with a rate of 21.57 per 100,000 for 2016), while the Canterbury DHB reported the most suicides in 2016, with 78 (the next highest was Waikato DHB with 55).
Since her first experience with suicide in 2010, Purdue has gone through guilt, grief and her own battle with depression.
‘‘It was horrific, I felt guilty and have lived in self-blame for a long time,’’ she said.
She said that in each case, no one had suspected what was happening before it was too late.
‘‘Everyone’s been surprised – incredibly surprised,’’ she said. ‘‘These are not the sort of people anyone saw this coming from, but in hindsight maybe the signs were there.’’
Having gone through her own struggle with depression after the birth of her son, Purdue said having people around to support her was critical. It was a friend who finally recognised what she was going through.
‘‘I needed someone to come to me, because I didn’t know how to say that I was depressed. You’re just in this absolute turmoil and you’re really not thinking straight,’’ she said. CHINESE brides in flimsy frocks are choppering to mountain tops and braving sub-zero temperatures to capture dramatic images of themselves in the snow.
Avoiding the tourist hordes outside the Church of the Good Shepherd at Lake Tekapo, demands 6am photo sessions and rising early so hair and makeup are done in time.
At the other end of the day, there’s always chance to grab a romantic shot with their groom beside the iconic church under a star-filled sky.
Nothing is too much trouble for Chinese couples spending thousands of dollars on lavish pre-wedding photo shoots that can last several days.
Pre-wedding shoots are a growing business here and Queenstown, Lake Tekapo and the wide open spaces of Central Otago are favoured spots.
Hobbiton – where photographers must pay a $1000 wedding fee – is also popular with Lord of the Rings fans.
Christchurch airport’s Asia sales director Swallow Wang, said Chinese couples often did the paperwork to get legally married months in advance of the actual wedding reception.
In the interim they travelled here, combining a holiday with the opportunity to get photographs to display at the wedding party.
Receptions were often lengthy affairs that included a lunch hosted by the bride’s family and a dinner hosted by the groom’s family so ‘‘no one does the photos on the day because it would be too stressful.’’
Wang said China’s seasonal extremes of heat and cold meant wedding photos were normally done in studios and the opportunity to get them taken outdoors with the South Island’s spectacular scenery as a backdrop was a big draw card for Chinese couples.
Last year Tangchi Film and Tourism expanded to Christchurch from China where it has 30 staff specialising in wedding photos and videos.
Co-owner John Zhang said a two night photo video package covering hotels, helicopter flights, photographer, dress and suit hire, and makeup cost between $7000 and $10,000, depending on the number of locations visited.
The itinerary usually included Lake Tekapo and Mt Cook where couples flew to the Liebig Dome, but he had also done shoots in Hagley Park and