By Isle of Wight Observer
I’m director of Isle of Wight Samaritans, the Island’s branch of the national suicide prevention charity. The role of Director is rotated among our volunteers, so I’m first and foremost a listening volunteer. I’m very proud to be working alongside a dedicated team of volunteers who are, as our founder said, “Ordinary people doing extraordinary things.”
Samaritans was started by Chad Varah in November 1953. Today, as we celebrate 70 years of supporting callers with emotional difficulties, it seems appropriate to look back at the development of the charity both nationally and here on the Island.
Samaritans has grown from “a man willing to listen”, to a nationwide service, open 24/7 all year round. We have around 20,000 volunteers working in 201 branches across the UK and Ireland, and it’s estimated that, in the 70 years of the service, we’ve taken no fewer than 120 million calls for help.
So it’s fair to ask: what impact has Samaritans had on our vision that fewer people die by suicide?
The fight against suicide will probably always be a complicated struggle. But taking the long view, over the 90 years from 1863 to 1953 average rates remained roughly static, with lows during the First and Second World Wars and a peak during the Great Depression, but from 1953, when Samaritans was founded, to the present, this rate has reduced by roughly 40 per cent.
As well as contributing to the national supply of volunteers to answer the phone lines, Isle of Wight Samaritans work to support our local community. No less than 10 per cent of the Island population are veterans, for example, and Isle of Wight Samaritans are supporting a number of initiatives to provide support for ex-service people.
We also support the community by providing suicide awareness training and postvention support – helping schools and other educational institutions prepare for, and manage, the aftermath of any unexpected death. We attend Island events, from the Isle of Wight County Show to Island Pride, raising awareness of our service and helping anybody who needs a listening ear.
We have a large number of prisoners on the Island, so we also focus on this section of the community. It’s a sobering fact that, every year, 700 out of every 1,000 prisoners will self-harm and, between 2008 and 2019, the risk of male prisoners dying by suicide was 3.9 times higher than the general male population. We provide support through our Listener Scheme – training prisoners to provide support to their fellow inmates, supported by specialist Samaritans Prison Volunteers. It’s a tribute to the value of our work in prisons that the government pays our branch to manage and maintain the service.
So how does all this come together? In a simple phrase, the work continues. There’s always more to do, and with our volunteers we can help achieve it. If you’re interested in joining us, do please visit our website, samaritans.org/support-us/volunteer. Time and again, volunteers tell us that they joined to help others, but they never realised how much they would get, themselves, out of volunteering.
Samaritans volunteers are perhaps the pinnacle of care and concern for our fellow humans. If you lose a life, you lose so much potential, and who knows what amazing things a person can do once they move away from feelings of suicide and despair? And how much of a privilege is it, to help a caller survive and thrive?
As one of our callers, whose first language wasn’t English, expressed his thoughts beautifully towards the end of a call: “When you talk kind, all the doors open.” If you’d like to discuss ways we can work with you to develop our support for the community, please email director@iow-samaritans.org.