EU funds “The Helpline” suicide initiative

Feb 10, 2017 News

… to target 3000 persons
The European Union (EU) on Wednesday, signed a grant contract of $87.9M with Youth Challenge Guyana in partnership with Merundoi and Family Awareness Consciousness Togetherness (FACT) to fund a suicide prevention

From left: EU Ambassador to Guyana, Jernej Videtic and Executive Director of Youth Challenge Guyana signing to the project yesterday.

project called the, “The Helpline”.
The launch of the project and signing of the contract was held in the Promenade Gardens, Georgetown. The project will be targeting over 3000 persons in Guyana aged 14 to 45 for three years.
Commenting at the launch of the project, EU Ambassador to Guyana, Jernej Videtic, said, “This is an unprecedented support for civil society in Guyana and shows the importance the European Union attaches to civil society and its role in democracy and human rights.
He added, “There is strong partnership between the European Union and civil society.”
The 36-month project aims to increase the supply of protective services for people at risk of suicide through a collaborative network of Civil Society Organisations currently engaged in communities across the country providing health and social services.
“The Helpline” will further aim to establish protective service centres across the country to accommodate counselling, life skills, support groups and case navigation to improve the existing psychosocial support systems to deliver targeted services to vulnerable communities.
Social workers, counsellors and life skills mentors will be deployed under the project to reach targeted populations via the radio serial drama, street theatre, mass media social marketing and social media marketing to change perceptions and beliefs about services much as counselling, support groups and other protective services.
The protective services that will be executed by this action will complement existing Government services and conduct case navigation of clients who require support from Government Services. Ambassador Videtic said the project will be addressing exactly these areas.
Further, “It is not mainly about funding the project it is mainly about the effect civil society gets when we help in Guyana. We are going to support because we are convinced that there can be a fully functioning democracy. I would like to wish all of the organisations a lot of success in this project.”
Executive Director of Youth Challenge Guyana, Dmitri Nicholson, said yesterday, “Many of us are familiar with the frequency with our headlines that someone has committed suicide. Unfortunately, we are no more aware of what triggered these actions and what power did we have to intervene, as a result of that three like-minded organisations came together and thought they should intervene and created a concept, though through obstacles and challenges, it was presented to the UN which got funded”.
The project will work with a number of Non-Governmental Organisations and provide services with persons in society particularly, counselling.
The Executive Director said that, they will be working with organisations in Regions Two, Three, Four Five, Six and Ten to ensure that services are closest to the most vulnerable population and communities.
These organisations will be supported with capacity building to strengthen their services that they currently offer.
“We believe that many persons are suffering in silence and do not know where to turn for help, it could be this way for a number of reasons one of which we found, is that many people in difficult circumstances often do not know what services are available to them and how to access them,” Nicholson said.
It is expected that through this initiative this will change, people will want to access protective services. They will also be networking survivors so that they can share their experiences and give strength to those out there that might be suffering from mental illness.
“You can lock up the instruments or mechanism that persons may use to injure themselves, but locking up these things does not mean that the hurt and pain that people face will go away, and if we can’t address this, the issue of suicide, it will never go away,” the Executive Director said.