West Vancouver secondary students Shahrzad Pedram (left), Colleen Murphy, Christian Budra, and Sage Massey raise their suicide awareness bracelets in unity during the school's suicide prevention walk-a-thon. Promoting suicide awareness   Yummi Pang North Shore News reporters@nsnews.com It's been taboo for too long. Suicide is never an easy topic to broach, especially when it comes to teens. At West Vancouver secondary, students are keen to open the lines of communication on suicide awareness and on Wednesday afternoon, held their first suicide prevention walk-a-thon on school grounds. "It's a very difficult topic to talk about," said Jude Platzer, director of the Josh Platzer Society. "With youth, I think it's way better if the youth will teach the youth." About 60 students participated in the event, a commendable number considering poor weather conditions. Students were inspired to take action after a presentation last November given by Platzer, whose society is named after Platzer's 15-year old son who died by suicide in 1999. Platzer has given presentations at many schools to help raise suicide awareness and has also been selling orange bracelets at her presentations to raise funds for suicide awareness education. The bracelets have a special crisis-line phone number and the Youth in B.C. website address. "(Suicide of a child) is the worst thing that can happen to any parent. It's been six years and when I talk about it, tears still come into my eyes," said Platzer. According to Platzer, suicide is second only to car accidents as the leading cause of death in people aged 15-24 years old. Platzer said she was excited when she first learned that West Vancouver secondary had taken the initiative to arrange the awareness walk. The student organizers handed out awareness brochures and accepted donations for the Josh Platzer Memorial Fund from their peers. Students who donated were invited to complete a lap around the school track and were then given one of the orange charity bracelets. Students at West Vancouver secondary have taken on the task of selling 300 of the orange charity bracelets, with about 100 sold so far. "It was a big event where we really spread the message and had people get these bracelets. If you see it on one person's hand, the word just spreads and everyone will want to know what it is," said student organizer, Shahrzad Pedram. To learn more about teen suicide awareness, visit the Josh Platzer Society website at www.teensuicideprevention.org. The provincial teen suicide prevention website is www.youthinbc.com and their hotline is 1-866-661-3311.