News

News PAPYRUS works with volunteers from across the UK – here’s an insider’s insight into what’s been happening in each of our PAPYRUS regions and nations, over the past few months...

NORTHERN IRELAND

As the Northern Ireland team continues to grow and develop in terms of visibility, our volunteers have begun undertaking work on exciting new projects. These include our first ever volunteerorganised HOPEWALK at the end of October, which so far has raised nearly £400! We also have some exciting opportunities ahead, where some of our volunteers will be able to facilitate our training for very interested groups and organisations. Watch this space!

WALES

As lockdown restrictions have been eased, our volunteers have been slowly getting out and about again across Wales; raising awareness and getting people interested in the work of PAPYRUS. We had some people who put their lives in the hands of gravity by taking part in a PAPYRUS parachute jump, a dedicated team of volunteers organised a touch rugby competition in Blackwood that raised over £3,500 and our volunteers were able to return to leisure centres, libraries, pubs and anywhere where someone could be persuaded to put up a PAPYRUS poster. In the run-up to October, volunteers in Wales collaborated on a project: HOPEWALK Cymru where we would organise the regular HOPEWALKs under one banner for Wales and attempt to walk 1621 miles between us – one mile for every young person who died by suicide in Wales and England in the last full set of figures. This has led to some great volunteer-led HOPEWALKs, including in Llandudno where volunteers battled through heavy rain and … err ... saved the life of a badger during the walk. It’s amazing what volunteers can do!

Things are all full steam ahead for Volunteering in the North West. We introduced our new Volunteer Coordinator in July, and Lydia has been working hard to grow the team, since. Due to the world slowly opening up again, there are plenty of new opportunities on the horizon for our volunteers to get involved with – both virtually and face to face. In terms of training, we have been training North West volunteers to become Awareness Raisers and Champions alongside London and West Midlands volunteers, so it’s been great to meet volunteers from across the UK. We also have a few of our Champions signed up to attend our Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training (ASIST). On World Suicide Prevention Day, we had many volunteers raising awareness through social media and through their own individual projects within the community. North West volunteers, watch this space whilst our lovely team of volunteers continues to grow!

WEST MIDLANDS

This autumn, volunteers have been attending community events across the Midlands for the first time since March 2021. It’s been great to be able to have one-to-one conversations with those affected by suicide, and to tell them about the work of PAPYRUS and HOPELINEUK. To honour World Suicide Prevention Day, we attended a large public event in Telford, which brought together a range of suicide prevention organisations in the city centre. Volunteers from the West Midlands co-produced a digital campaign resource for World Suicide Prevention Day. We were inspired by this year’s theme of ‘Creating Hope Through Action’ and created an e-card which supporters and volunteers could send to spread messages of hope. We have an exciting project running for a year in Warwickshire, as we were successful in securing funding from the Warwickshire Covid-19 Mental Wellbeing and Resilience Fund. The funding will enable us to recruit and train new volunteers, and to further train and develop existing volunteers to engage in suicide-prevention activities. The project is all about building resilient and mentally-healthy communities, and we will be aiming to set up a self-sustaining group of volunteers to increase awareness of suicide prevention in the county.

LONDON

The London volunteers have been incredibly busy since the last edition of Smash the Stigma, from raising awareness and promoting volunteering at Fresher’s Fairs to delivering SP-ARKs for World Suicide Prevention Day. Imo has been incredibly proud of all the hard work; it’s been great seeing volunteers out in the community and so many Champions deliver their first SP-ARKs. London is also pleased to be training lovely new volunteers with the wider PAPYRUS team and is looking forward to seeing what they will achieve. Speaking of the wider PAPYRUS team, it’s really exciting to witness the growth of the volunteer team as we have gained Lydia, the new North West Volunteer Coordinator, and Danielle, the new Cardiff Volunteer Coordinator