IN 2015, I commenced my first set of volunteering and social initiatives. At the time, I was just 15 years old. I was just joining the round table discussions, trying to better understand what’s happening in our society. As young as I was, I was determined to be a change agent, no matter how small my efforts were at the time. During those very conversations, I vividly remembered that there was always one issue that was always a priority to speak on–suicide. At the time, Guyana was labelled as the “Suicide Capital” of the world. Most of the reports came from the year 2012, but this social issue continued throughout the years. I also remember the intense media campaigns, outreaches, workshop sessions and fundraisers that were held throughout the country used it as their platforms for pageants, NGOs budgeted their year’s work with anti-suicide agendas and the Ministries of Health and Social Protection even launched their own campaigns. There was a collective social cry amongst Guyanese for those who were affected directly and indirectly by suicide.

Whatever happened to that collectiveness amongst our people to combat suicide? Did Guyanese become desensitised to suicide? Yes, there are still campaigns and agendas that are set to target suicide and its underlying issues in communities. However, we’ve only stepped down from being number one in the world to being number two on the list of the countries with the highest suicidal rates. Lesotho is now number one on that list. Let me be the first to say that our efforts as a country to combat this issue is not enough. It’s unacceptable. Approximately 40 out of 100,000 commit suicide. To some, the number 40 may be small and our overall counts are low. The numbers do matter because the size of our population is only about 780,000. You can do the math and then understand how devastating this is for the country.

Every programme that is implemented needs a monitoring and evaluation period. Similarly, all programmes that were implemented to help with suicide prevention or to help with the aftermath ought to be evaluated. Only then we will be able to understand how or why these programmes are effective or not. Media personnel and agencies also play an integral role with how we combat social issues. As such, they ought to be trained in suicide sensitisation, appropriate language and all other necessary headings related to how journalists cover suicide-related media stories. In these modern times, many Guyanese now have access to mobile phones or telephones. As such, I believe that the national suicide hotline should be re-evaluated and implemented. If not, a similar body can be implemented that uses accessible communication methods that Guyanese can contact or access for counselling and important information on mental health.

As someone who has seen the direct effects that suicide or an attempted suicide can do to Guyanese—those are my recommendations to those in authority who may have the ability to make these changes possible. Those numbers I mentioned previously are not just numbers. They represent real people from our very own country. This is not an issue that should be swept under the rug. There is no place to be desensitised to the causes, effects and underlying issues of suicide. I still have the very change-agent mindset I had when I was 15 years old and I hope that we treat every year as if it’s 2015 again until these statistics are down.