A Canadian Story
 

I was talking with some good friends about volunteer work that they had been doing with Canadian aboriginals. It was very distressing to find out about Foetal Alcohol Syndrome.

This is a picture I did while I was feeling it. Anyone else come across this disaster?

FAS nation.

This from a report by Health Canada:

"Continuing evidence of racism and institutionalized discrimination against Aboriginal peoples in Canada spills over to First Nations children and youth, who end up experiencing significant difficulties at home and at school. Not only are Indian children being taken into foster care at well over four times the rate of non-Aboriginal children, but an alarmingly high proportion of First Nations youth (64 percent) never complete high school. By contrast, only 31 percent of non-Aboriginal Canadians fail to obtain a secondary school diploma.

Meanwhile, the infant mortality rate for First Nations babies is roughly twice the Canadian average, and levels of morbidity and mortality among Indian children and youth remain high throughout their first 18 years of life. Contributing factors include an injury rate three times the national average; elevated levels of respiratory and infectious diseases in many First Nations communities; along with rates of suicide, depression and childhood sexual or physical abuse that are deemed to be significantly higher than those of the non-Aboriginal population. Finally, First Nations youth are at elevated risk of suffering from a physical, developmental or learning disability, with one regional study going so far as to suggest that Foetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) and Foetal Alcohol Effects (FAE) are responsible for nearly 75 percent of these cases."