The public is reminded that in celebration of Suicide Prevention Day the Health Services Authority has organized activities that focus on community education and supporting mental wellness.

Wednesday, 11 September at 6:30 p.m. is The Challenge of Being Happy held at St Matthew University. Refreshments provided.

Thursday 12 September at 5:30 p.m. at Mary Miller Hall, a public forum: Moving On will explore life after attempted-suicide including those it affects. 

An Art & Science of Happiness event on Friday, 13 September at 6:30 p.m. at the Agape Family Worship Centre, will help teens to better appreciate themselves and discuss choices that will increase happiness.

For more info, contact Health Services at 244-2650.

Related story

Barbados records five suspected suicides in five weeks

From Caribbean360

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, Wednesday September 11, 2013 – In light of the number of recent suspected suicides, this week’s Brass Tacks Sunday, a regular interactive programme on Voice of Barbados radio, turned the spotlight on a number of issues that can lead to depression and possible suicide.

As if to drive the message home, and in a strange twist of fate, news broke during the course of the programme of the discovery of another suspected suicide, bringing the count to five persons who had apparently ended their own lives within the last five weeks.

The recent spate of suicides began on August 2 when the body of Monica Marshall-Wilkinson was found at the foot of a cliff at North Point on the parish of St Lucy.

Just four days later, 49-year-old David Layne of Country Road in St Michael was found hanging in a shed not far from his home.

Tragedy struck again when the body of 18-year-old Chevonne King, the mother of a five-month-old son, was discovered by her best friend, hanging at her home on August 30.

Within days, a recruit at the Regional Police Training Centre in Barbados, 30-year-old Darwin Downes, died of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head on September 1.

On Sunday, the body of 56-year-old Selwyn Sobers was found hanging in the bedroom of his Passage Road, St Michael home by a neighbour who had been alerted by a foul odour.

Meanwhile, on Brass Tacks Sunday, guidance counsellor Dr Donna Tull-Cox explained that the economic climate could not solely be blamed for people ending their lives, but relationship issues, change and “the perpetuality of it” could also be considered.

“I can stand here and hold a penny in my hand up in the air and I can probably hold on to that for an hour. When I get to an hour-and-a-half, my hand starts to shake. When I get into two hours, I am swelling completely,” she said by way of illustration.

“When I get into three hours, I don’t know that I still have an arm. But other people look at it and say ‘well, it’s just a penny.’”

The guidance counsellor went on to explain that people might have been holding on to problems for a very long time and how long they had endured them was not known.

“We don’t have any idea how long because there are different scenarios. People have been holding on for different lengths of time, but the same effect happens: you get to a point where you just can’t take it anymore,” she said

For more on this story go to:                                    http://www.caribbean360.com/index.php/news/barbados_news/1012834.html?utm_source=Caribbean360+Newsletters&utm_campaign=1d993b4c19-Vol_8_Issue_159_News9_11_2013&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_350247989a-1d993b4c19-39393477#ixzz2ebuixuVJ