Befrienders KK

KOTA KINABALU: Befrienders KK has received three suicidal calls since its inception, but as to whether the callers actually committed suicide is unknown.

Revealing this, Befrienders KK president Datin Sri Siti Rubiah Abdul Samad explained that all callers are anonymous and there is no way of determining whether they would actually take their own lives.

“But we treat each call seriously as we believe when a person is suicidal, they already have the intention but are having second thoughts,” she said.

Siti Rubiah said Befrienders KK receives an average of 295 calls annually and most of them are to do with relationships between couples and family issues.

She said repeat callers account for the bulk of the calls.

Befrienders KK presently has 29 listening volunteers and 10 associate volunteers, and is hoping to get more volunteers in its upcoming intake.

“We need people to listen. We also need people to talk about Befrienders,” she said.

According to Liz Try, the Chair of the Befrienders Worldwide Steering Group who visited Kota Kinabalu recently, most people have gone through moments when they thought of ending their lives.

For some, it is just a fleeting thought while for others, the thought stays on, she said.

“Suicide is not a topic one would talk about during dinner…what the Befrienders do it to enable people to talk about it, to talk about dying and to talk about how bad they are feeling; we help people to explore their options.

“We don’t advise them since (we believe) each of us knows fundamentally what are the solution(s) to our problems. We’re telling people to think about it and that at the end of the day, they need to take responsibility for their action,” she said.