Students Against Suicide is our National Awareness and Solidarity Campaign for 2017.
Students from across the country contact us daily asking why more isn't being done about youth suicide specifically. YSPI's Schools Programme will reach around 24,000 students in schools and colleges across the country this year but we don't receive a cent from the government. We want 2017 to be our year of awareness, our year of solidarity with the families, friends and fellow students of those young people who have died by suicide.
Our campaign is focussed on:
- More funding for youth specific suicide prevention programmes that actually reach the people who need them, young people.
- Funding for a national online Youth Counselling Service so that young people in rural areas can get counselling and support more easily and quickly.
- Recognition that the official statistics are only telling part of the story, that the story on the ground is very different.
- Accepting that all the other crises that affect young people, homelessness, financial pressures, lack of opportunities, deprivation, bullying & harassment, they all lead back to an increased risk of suicide.
Students of Ireland, we have power, let's use it in 2017.