Samaritans celebrate 24/7 Support on Awareness Day at Chichester Cross

Samaritans volunteers are raising awareness of the free, emotional support theyprovide, available to everyone 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Transcript

00:00Hi, I'm Nick Taunt. I'm a branch director of Samaritans. We're based at Bognor, Regis,

00:07but we cover the whole area of Bognor and Chichester and the district, although of course

00:12we take calls from all over the country. This is Awareness Day. It's Wednesday the 24th of July,

00:18the 24th day of the seventh month, 24-7, and it reminds everyone that we are open 24-7.

00:27You can phone us at any time of day or night and a Samaritan will pick up the phone and

00:34will listen to you, and we want to raise awareness of what we do. The purpose of Samaritans is to

00:43reduce the number of people who take their own lives, and we try and do that by listening,

00:51by encouraging people to listen to each other, but also by listening to people who phone us

00:57because they're close to despair, and sometimes they will say things like,

01:02I've never said this to anyone else, not my nearest or dearest, I'm too embarrassed,

01:08but they can say it to us because the service we offer is confidential, it's non-judgmental,

01:15it's anonymous, and we will listen.