It was the loss of a friend bubbling with life and preparing for civic service exams that led a group of five BPO executives to set up a forum to fight against rising suicides among youth in Bangalore.
It was the loss of a friend bubbling with life and preparing for civic service exams that led a group of five BPO executives to set up a forum to fight against rising suicides among youth in Bangalore.
The forum will be formally inaugurated on April 29, coinciding with the birthday of their deceased friend. Malini V, Manasa V, Mughila, Rekha Balraj, and Pratibha PN, the five founding members of the forum, were distraught after the loss of their best friend in May last year. Financial difficulties had driven her to end life.
“It was shocking for us to lose her under such tragic circumstances. It took us months to recover from the tragedy. She was a very good human being and in her memory, we want start the anti-suicide forum to fight against the scourge of suicide, afflicting city youths,” said Pratibha, who is working in HP.
The five young BPO employees will start the forum with an idea to create a platform, where youths can openly discuss their problems and find solutions to their woes.
As part of its initial work, the forum will visit various schools and colleges of the city to reach out to young people, who show suicidal tendencies.
“Exam season will be soon over and results will be out in two month. During this time, youngsters go through several psychological traumas and unfortunately, most of the times they are left alone to fight with the problems. The forum will try to reach out to those youngsters who have nobody to help them,” said Malini, also an employee in HP.
The forum will regularly hold awareness programmes and counselling sessions. A group of experts, including activists, psychologists, educationalists and doctors will be part of the forum.
“We have contributed from our pockets to create a corpus fund to start awareness and counselling sessions,” said Manasa, an executive in Tesco. Soon, the forum will go online by starting its dedicated account on Facebook.
“We will also take the help of SMSs to start our campaign,” said Prathiba.
Experts from Child Rights Trust Bangalore are helping in this noble endeavour. The latest report of National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), released in December 2010, says Bangalore continues to be the suicide capital of India.
According to Accidental Deaths and Suicides 2009 Report, Bangalore tops the list of 35 cities in India in terms of suicides.
The city recorded 2,167 suicides in 2009 compared to 1,412 in Chennai, 1,215 in Delhi and 1,051 in Mumbai.
“The four cities together have reported almost 43.3% of the total suicides in 35 mega cities,” the report says.
There were 2,396 suicides in Bangalore the previous year, 10% higher than the latest figure. But despite that, the city continues to top the charts.
It’s not just the volume. Bangalore also has the highest suicide rate of 38.1 per one lakh people. In comparison, it is 1.5 per lakh for Kolkata. The national average is 10.9 per lakh and the state’s is 22.
A National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, Bangalore study on reasons for the increasing number of suicides in the city showed that severe stress, competition at workplace and lack of economic security were among the causes of most suicides.
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