No call for help goes unanswered

Thank you for your continuing your support for Central London Samaritans.

Every week, on average, 14 Londoners choose to end their own lives. Every day, with your support, we enable our highly trained volunteers to give a person in distress and despair the time to talk, the warmth and emotional support to explore their feelings, uncover solutions and perhaps……. discover a way forward to avert a personal tragedy and the devastating loss of a loved one, a friend or a colleague.

Over the summer of 2018, we have been raising awareness of our work in different ways - we have had sporting challenge called Cycle for Samaritans, held at Charing Cross Station where corporate companies had to cycle 2,470 miles (reflecting our 24/7 service) between 7am-7pm, where we raised almost £4,000. We've also held some Sing for Samaritans events with the help of London choirs (donating their time) raising around £300 each. 

As well as providing emotional support via our helpline services our volunteers continued to reach out and support vulnerable groups across London, including the homeless community, young people, men and women in custody and LGBT+ people reaching 504 people and raising awareness of our service to 121,550 people.

On 24^th July, we're hosting a 24-hour event called The Big Listen. We’re open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, all year round, for anyone who is struggling to cope. Last year we answered over 5 million calls. But we need your help to raise the vital funds we need to keep going. Give. Share. Save A Life. 

The Big Listen is all about raising awareness and funds to keep Samaritans running. Suicide is not inevitable, it’s preventable, and our volunteers are there 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, to support people that feel like they have nowhere to turn. We answer a call for help every six seconds - and you can help us be there to answer the next one. So far in the year to date, Samaritans has answered 1,670,267 calls of which 185,826 were unique callers.

It costs £5 for every call we take -  to recruit, train and supporting our volunteers, run the 201 branches where they’re based, and help promote our services so that we’re there to listen in confidence 24/7, for free. Central London Samaritans is raising awareness and bucket collecting at Kings Cross Station from 7am-7pm in the hope of getting more much needed funds towards the work we do. 

Our work at Central London Samaritans is ongoing, with your support we are able to continue to provide a 24 hour service by telephone, face to face visits, SMS and email every day of the year.

A donation of £7 donation today will enable Samaritans to respond to two calls for help.

£69 will support our phone lines for one hour during which Samaritans will help 15 people, 4 of whom will be experiencing suicidal thoughts.

£175 will help experienced volunteers to reach out to some of London's most vulnerable homeless people, the LGBT+ community, those breaved by suicide & people in custody.

Each year our 430 volunteers:

- donate over 95,000 hours to run our charity – that’s over 11 years…

- respond to over 100,000 calls for help via phone, SMS and email

- support 4,500 contacts face to face

- help over 2,000 of London’s most vulnerable people includingthe homeless, the LGBT+ community, those breaved by suicide & people in custody.

- raise awareness with up to 200,000 young people through our schools and university outreach

We are a charity. We rely entirely on donations from the public, businesses and other organisations. It costs around £450,000 a year to run our branch.

Getting a response from a real person and being given the time and space to talk things through helps people to find a way through their problems.

We help people to explore their options so they can make decisions that are right for them.