Globally, around eight million people die by suicide every year. For India, this figure stands at 250,000. In Kerala, around 8,000 people end their life each year. Many of these suicides could have been prevented if there would have been opportunities to talk openly to someone about the inner pain and stressful thoughts and then to seek help if needed. The more we are able to identify someone in distress and engage in caring conversations, the more we can help save lives. With your help, we aim to train 100,000 individuals in Kerala on how to help people in such emotional distress.

In 2016, the Kerala state government declared its intention to bring the suicide rate down from 24.9 per lakh (i.e. per 100,000) to 16 per lakh population in accordance with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDG) programme. We hope that this short course will be useful in our efforts to achieve this.