For my project, i research on the organization which is the Samaritans of Singapore. The Samritans of Singapore(SOS) was established on 1st december 1969. This is a non-profit and non-religious organization, which they aims to prevent suicide by providing emotional support and befriending to those who are despairing, discouraged or distressed.
Their vision is to be an available lifeline to anyone in crisis and the mission of the organization is to provides confidential 24-hour emotional support by trained volunteers to people in crisis, thinking of suicide or affected by suicide.
The services they provides are
-24-hour hotline:1800-221-4444;
-Email befriending;
-Face-to-face sessions;
-Emergency squad;
-Local Outreach to Suicide
-Survivors(LOSS); and Healing Bridge-a support group for suicide survivors.
For my individual research finding, i have decided to compare Samaritans of Singapore with America Foundation for Suicide Prevention(AFSP). The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP) is the leading national not-for-profit organization exclusively dedicated to understanding and preventing suicide through research, education and advocacy, and to reaching out to people with mental disorders and those impacted by suicide.
What is lacking from the Samaritans of Singapore is provide education and infomation to the media and public through videos, publications and brochures. Moreover, SOS do not collaboration with social-networking websites to promote them. However, AFSP collaboration with quite a few of social-networking websites such as MySpace, Facebook, youtube, twitter and flickr. To fully their mission they even include activities such as:
- Supporting research that is improving our understanding of suicide and its prevention. Since 2000, AFSP has invested over $10 million in new studies, including research into treatments for people who are depressed and suicidal.
- Providing education and information about depression and suicide to professionals, the media and the public through workshops, trainings, the AFSP website, videos, publications, brochures and public service announcements. AFSP’s PSA, “Suicide Shouldn’t be a Secret,” has reached 90 million television viewers.
- Publicizing the magnitude of the problems of depression and suicide, advocating for policies and legislation that can help prevent suicide and working to eliminate the stigma surrounding mental illness and suicide.
- Offering programs for survivors of suicide loss that can be of assistance and involving survivors in suicide prevention. AFSP survivor initiatives include the National Survivors of Suicide Day program, which was broadcast to over 175 communities and was simulcast on the AFSP website, the Survivor e-Network and trainings for survivor support group facilitators.
However, SOS have catchy phrases to motivate people to volunteer such as “we can do no great things, only small things with great love” and “I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully. Most people never listen.”. They also tell the audiences what to do and what not to do.
I think the area of improvement the SOS should have is the layout of the website. The website layout is messy and difficult to navigate even though it is very creative. I think they should hold activities to the public so as to create awareness of suicidal to them.They could publicize to the public with videos and brochures. Additional of workshop,training and education to the professional are needed too. They should also collaborate with social-networking website such as facebook and twitter.
In conclusion, the SOS should have work harder on their website layout and the collaboration with the social-networking websites to increase the effectiveness of their mission. I believe making use of these social-networking websites would attract more teenagers. Through these mediums, they could update their stuff daily to different catogories of audiences.
