KUCHING: Befrienders Kuching currently has two missions – to create more awareness about mental health and having its own base of operations.
For this purpose, the non-profit organisation for the prevention of suicide paid a courtesy call on Welfare, Community Wellbeing, Women, Family and Children Development Minister Datuk Seri Fatimah Abdullah here yesterday.
“The government does provide grants to NGOs for activities such as conducting more awareness (campaigns) on mental health,” said Fatimah.
Unfortunately, she said, the government did not provide grants for the purchase of premises as a lot of NGOs wanted to conduct as many outreach programmes or activities as possible and often, financing became a stumbling block.
“Thus, this is where the grant from my ministry comes into the picture. As long as the proposal is good and can be supported, only then we can provide the grants for the NGOs accordingly.”
She wanted the NGOs to work together with the government as the latter could not do everything.
Befrienders Kuching president Dr Rosliwati Yusof explained to the minister that the organisation feared for the safety of its volunteers.
“This year alone, we had to move our base of operations several times as we fear for our volunteers’ safety as our services normally commence during late hours of the day (6.30pm to 9.30pm).
“If we were to reveal our location, we fear that there would be people coming to our office and talking to us because currently, we are not ready to have face-to-face sessions yet.”
Dr Rosliwati said they were also looking for a suitable location as they did not have a fixed and proper location at the moment.
She revealed that the organisation received a total of 500 calls as of June where callers talked about their mental health, and they had also received more e-mails than calls ever since setting up their e-mailing service on Jan 1.
In conjunction with the first anniversary of the creation of Befriender Kuching’s suicide prevention hotline, a fundraiser will be held on Aug 10 at Imperial Hotel here.
Seats are available at RM120 each while per table, it is RM1,200.
The dinner aims to raise RM100,000 for various activities conducted by Befrienders Kuching and operating costs.
