REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE SAMARITANS IRISH REGIONAL CONFERENCE ‘SOMETHING TO LIVE FOR’
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE SAMARITANS IRISH REGIONAL CONFERENCE ‘SOMETHING TO LIVE FOR’ MAGHERABUOY HOUSE HOTEL
Tá an-áthas orm bheith i bhur láthair ar an ocáid seo. Tá me buíoch dibh as an cuireadh agus an fáilte fíorchaoin a chur sibh romham.
Thank you for the invitation and the welcome to this Samaritans Irish Regional Conference 2010. When Geoffrey J. Whitehead, Director of the Coleraine Branch of the Samaritans asked me to be here I accepted with alacrity for it gives me an opportunity to meet the Samaritan community of volunteers and to thank each one for all they do so quietly each day to put hope and help between individuals and suffocating despair.
The chosen theme for this conference ‘Something to Live For’ succinctly encapsulates the mission of the Samaritans in offering people in acute distress, a pathway beyond suicidal thoughts to a future worth living for. Over fifty years ago Chad Varah saw the opportunity for immediate and round the clock support that the technology of the telephone offered. The telephone help line came into being thanks to a team of volunteers who made the distress of strangers their business. They equipped themselves with new skills so that they could sensitively empathise with people in crisis, and that active listening has for decades now proved itself to be literally a lifeline for countless men and women and children. Like all truly good and humanly decent ideas, the Samaritans flourished and branches were soon opening up all over the place. In fact, our hosts the Coleraine branch of the Samaritans are celebrating their 40th Anniversary later this year and the Dublin branch celebrated their 40th Anniversary earlier this month.
We can count the number of phone calls or individuals talked to or volunteers trained or hours spent on phones or funds raised and those statistics would amaze us in themselves for they would reveal a desperate level of need which might never have been met if you had not been there. What the statistics can not tell us is the litany of sadness, self-doubt, mental illness, bereavement, grief, guilt, relationship breakdown, job loss, sickness, pressure, stress or anxiety that drives human beings into such dreadful pain that they feel overwhelmed and may even contemplate ending their lives. They may have no-one to care about them or they may have loving families but cannot reveal to them their distress. But somewhere, somehow the name of the Samaritans comes to them and they make that call. To be the person who answers that call confers a huge responsibility. For now you are involved in that person’s life in an intimate and powerful way and you are challenged to calmly and effectively communicate so that a person who may be on the edge of panic and despair can be helped to rationally explore issues and options whilst respecting the Samaritan’s policy of not giving direct advice. You have to help that person see for themselves that there is something to live for. It is a big ask and yet over 2,000 volunteers in Ireland regularly do just that. They invest their time and their qualities of care and compassion so that complete strangers and their families can know the joy of life beyond desperation and avoid the awful relentless bereftness that is the consequence so often of suicide.
Suicide knows no boundaries – geographical or political. On both sides of the border it breaks too many hearts each year and we have both devised strategies to try and get to grips with this devastating phenomenon. ‘Protect Life; A Shared Vision’ (2006) in Northern Ireland and ‘Reach Out’ (2005) in the South aim at preventing suicidal behaviour, including deliberate self-harm and increasing awareness of the importance of good mental health among the general population. Cross-border learning and cooperation on this issue allows us to enhance the cumulative impact of the many efforts being made by professionals and volunteers to address the issue of mental health awareness and suicide prevention.
The Samaritans phone-line has of course been augmented by new services like SMS, e-mail, postal and drop-in facilities, as well as your programmes specially designed to support prisoners across the island of Ireland. Through these things we see that spirit of creativity and updating that was the imprint of Chad Varah. A big difference between his early days and ours is the breaking down of the stigma and taboo surrounding mental health. They have had a long shelf life and dreadful consequences for so many people but at last they are being seriously and relentlessly challenged by the Samaritans and many like-minded organizations and individuals. It is an important moment in our history to be insisting on greater openness and awareness of mental health issues.
The current economic situation is putting people under real strain. Family life can be more fraught thanks to worries over money, jobs, mortgages and debts. The young people who grew up through years of boom and plenty now face reduced opportunities and prospects. Their coping skills are being severely tested - possibly for the first time. Young males are among the groups hardest hit economically. They are also very worryingly the group most at risk of suicide. Older generations who knew nothing but recession, who grew up with an almost fatalistic resilience to life’s ups and downs may be better able to deal with these times but even there we find pockets of high suicide risk, especially among older males. All those who are currently suffering really need to hear the voices from this conference tell them loudly and clearly that they do indeed have ‘Something to Live For’, something valuable to themselves and to all of us - something so important that people who have otherwise busy lives, join the Samaritans and make space in their lives to be a reliable friend, a sensible support to the suffering stranger. None of us can travel another person’s life’s journey for them, much as we might wish to be able to do so sometimes. But we can go on life’s journey with them and that can make all the difference - the difference between coping and not coping, the difference between giving up and starting over again.
I hope that this work brings each one of you a deep personal fulfillment that comes from helping a human being to discover that he or she has indeed something to live for. I know too that you will at times take home with you a shared grief, an intense and personal loss when the battle is not successful even with the best will and help in the world. Few of us are strong all the time, many of us over the course of a lifetime will encounter a period or circumstance which will make us feel vulnerable and fragile. How we cope with those times, how we use the help available can often reveal to us a strength we doubted that we had. The weak and the fragile can paradoxically often become or help us to become the strong and the resilient. Leonard Cohen expressed it beautifully in one of his songs:
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in
The Samaritans have been ringing bells for over 50 years and through your work a huge amount of light has managed to get in. May your efforts ensure that the light is there, ever faithful, ever ready to dispel the darkness that gathers too often in human hearts and minds and blinds us to the fact that there is always, after all, something to live for. Go raibh míle maith agaibh go léir.