Coming Together for Suicide Prevention

A massive fifteen day-long  campaign on suicide prevention was undertaken by Manam Foundation in collaboration with Indian Express and radio channel 93.5 Red F.M. This hugely neglected issue was tackled through awareness talks, workshops, seminars which aimed at educating different cross sections of society regarding identification of emotions and coping measures to avert risky  suicidal behaviour. The thrust age group was that of the adolescents and workshops were held in Engineering and Medical Colleges like GITA, NIST, SUM, IIT, Silicon, Ramadevi and NISER. The sessions were hugely interactive.

The momentum was maintained till the day of the event, September 10, where the campaign culminated in a scintillating function at East Coast Railway Auditorium amidst distinguished guests, Dr. R. P. Sharma (Director General of Police, Odisha), Dr. B. R. Mishra (Associate Professor, Department of Psychiatry, AIIMS Bhubaneswar), Dr. Pranay Swain (DEAN Students’ Affairs, NISER Bhubaneswar) and Mr. A. Sarangi (Director BPSPA). There were superbly orchestrated performances by the Odissi Dance Academy, TPH group from KIIT and Sai Dance Group. The campaign had opened a competition for public participation to win awards for poetry writing, short story writing, slogan writing and photography. There was overwhelming response with over two hundred participants and the awards were given out to the winners at the function. The program was attended by social groups, students of various colleges and participants from Manam and The New Indian Express House. The program ended with a declaration of creating a State helpline for the suicial and the emotionally deprived.