Social Protection Ministry supports suicide prevention initiatives

Feb 06, 2016 News

The Ministry of Social Protection has intensified its efforts to help prevent suicide by taking the message to schools, communities and workplaces.

Diego Alphonso during the launch of ‘Operation Safe and Sound’.

This week, a suicide prevention conference for staff was hosted by Qualfon and facilitated by Diego Alphonso, Administrator of the Men’s Affairs Bureau and Adel Lilly the Gender Specialist within the Ministry. The discussion also included addressing the issues of Gender Based Violence and Anger Management.
The Minister has also thrown its support behind yet another initiative. Targeting youths, the Ministry supported Queens College for the launch of “Operation Safe and Sound” a special project by four students that seeks to address suicide in the school.
The students, Angelina Boodhoo, Akarshini Singh, Shafeena Milton, and Wei Jun Wong, said the project aims at educating fellow students on the signs and symptoms of suicide, finding positivity in life, and how to get help.
Under the theme, “I am a Survivor”, ‘Operation Safe and Sound’ is geared to introduce “The Elder’s Sibling Programme”, where a responsible, mature upper school student, poses as a ‘sibling’ and lends emotional support, advice and academic help to a student of any age. Alphonso congratulated the students for their initiative, noting that it’s worthy of emulation in other schools.
An outreach was also conducted at the Buxton Secondary School as part of the ongoing collaboration with the Community Policing Group of C1 Division, East Coast Demerara.