One in every person attempts suicide every 36 hours.
With this statistics, these figures are surely alarming with a small population like Fiji.
Statistics released by releveant authorities revealed that a total of 89 people committed suicide last year alone, while 80 people attempted to take their own lives.
With World Suicide Prevention Day celebrated internationally today, the Youth Champs 4 Mental Health is adamant that figures can be brought down.
The Youth Champs 4 Mental Health has been on the forefront of creating awareness on the issue of suicide.
“Given the stats by several ministries we have noticed that the leading cause of deaths in the country among you people is suicide as compared to road accidents and drowning when we go into the communities or cities we look at majority of the billboards majority of the advertisement are on the road safety are on NCDS but there is nothing specifically on suicide,” said YC4MH president Lionel Rogers.
Raising awareness on Suicide should be everyone’s responsibility.
“Stigma associated with mental health and suicide is basically the culture of silence that we have in our communities that it’s not ok..we talk about Fiji as a very resilient nation Fiji rated as one of the happiest nation in the world but in the white sandy beaches and this beautiful country we call Fiji it’s covered with the blood of our young people who have died to suicide. “
The Youth Champs 4 Mental Health’s main aim is to promote suicide prevention through dialogue.
“Youth champs for mental health is currently visiting schools in collaboration with the Ministry of health and ministry of education and we have started visiting schools we will be covering 30 schools in three divisions covering close to 5,000 to 6,000 students and half of the schools we visited last week we noticed the increase in students who have come to us talk about the problems that they are going through, how they could assist and how they can access our services so there is much to be done.”
Yesterday, an Eleven year old student is allegedly a victim of suicide. The incident occurred yesterday on Kadavu.
It is alleged the teenager took his own life after he was disallowed from accompanying his parents to Vunisea.