Ireland projects
Samaritans Reaching Out
As well as offering our national helpline,
our e-mail service and face to face visits through our branch
network, we have embarked on a number of projects in recent years
to raise awareness of our services, especially to those who are
most in need of support.
Festival Branch
Samaritans Irish Festival branch was
launched in January 1999 with the aim of taking Samaritans' service
to locations where there are large numbers of people, increasing
the availability and accessibility of confidential emotional
support to anyone who needs it. Every year the branch requests a
presence at selected major events according to the availability of
volunteers and schedule of the events.
Feet on the
Street
Specially trained Samaritans volunteers
proactively take to the streets of Dublin’s Temple Bar at weekends,
meeting young people on neutral territory and exploring with them
feelings of isolation, despair or suicide.
Prisoner Support
Samaritans’ volunteers operate weekly visits
to Ireland’s largest prisons where they offer face to face
emotional support to prisoners. As well as offering this service to
over 2,200 prisoners, volunteers select, train and support
prisoners as ‘listeners’, who in turn offer direct support to their
fellow inmates in line with the values of Samaritans.
The ‘Listener Scheme’ is active in the
following prisons: Arbour Hill, Castlerea, Cloverhill, Cork,
Dochas, Limerick, Maghaberry, Magilligan,
Mountjoy, St Patrick’s Young Offenders and Wheatfield.
Schools
Programme
Samaritans volunteers give presentations in
schools and colleges, educating young people on emotional health
and how their well-being can be improved by expressing difficult
emotions rather than keeping problems and issues bottled up.
More information
For more information on Samaritans Ireland please
contact:
Suzanne Costello, Director, Samaritans Ireland
Dublin:
4-5 Usher’s Court
Usher’s Quay
Dublin8
Tel: + 353 1 6710071
Fax: + 353 1 6710043 |
Belfast:
5 Wellesley Avenue
Belfast
BT9 6DG
Tel: 028 903 81133 |
See the
complete list of Samaritans Branches in Ireland
Details of
other organisations working in the area of suicide reduction in
Ireland
View the Statistics
from Samaritans in Ireland