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THE SAMARITANS
The Samaritan organisation was established in the 1950's by
Reverend Chad Varan. He decided to form this organisation to be able
to help people who were thinking of committing suicide. He believed
that if the people who wanted to kill themselves had a friend to talk to
5 on the phone, they would probably decide not to commit suicide.
People who work as Samaritans don't earn any money. They are
volunteers. They are carefully selected and trained so that the highest
standards of caring and befriending are achieved. A Samaritan has to be
trained because he has to learn how to deal with a person who is in
10 psychological distress since a person who wants to commit suicide
cannot think clearly, feels lonely, left-out and hopeless. A Samaritan
should know about how to put such a person at ease and make him
change his mind. He ought to be able to persuade the person on the
other end of the line that killing himself is not the only solution to his
15 problem, that there are alternatives in life, and that life is worth living in
spite of all the difficulties. They have to be very careful while talking to
the people. They never indoctrinate them or preach at them; that is, they
never tell them what they must or should do.
In countries where the telephone is readily available, i.e., where
20 finding a phone is not a problem, a telephone number which is easily
remembered is advertised so that people who are likely to take their own
lives can find someone to talk to easily.
The Samaritans have developed a very careful publicity programme
because they want the public to know that there are people who care and
25 are ready to help them 24 hours a day. They want every person who is
about to commit suicide to be able to contact them. In their publicity
programmes they tell that the phone calls are always confidential. In
other words, the phone calls are kept secret and the Samaritans will not
tell other people about the calls and no one else, except for them, will
30 know about the situation.
This organisation has been very successful so far. Between 1983
and 1994, the suicide rate in England and Wales fell from 12 to 7 per
100,000.