Think of a time you really needed help and it wasn’t there.
A waitlist with no end date. A form that didn’t fit your situation. A door that was closed when you finally got there. It was frustrating, maybe even frightening. Now imagine it happened on the hardest day of your life.
Despair isn’t a bad day. For too many people in BC, it is what’s left when the help they expected isn’t there.
It doesn’t have to be this way. At the Crisis Centre of BC, we are working to change the systems and the spaces around us, so that when someone’s hardest moment arrives, help is there, and so is hope.
Right now, that work includes two projects.
Omar’s story
Hope shouldn’t depend on being in the right place at the right moment.
Imagine a community built with the person in despair in mind. Working with Dr. Omar Swei at the University of British Columbia, we are showing that making public infrastructure suicide-safer is practical and affordable, so prevention is built in from the start, not added after a loss. More than 90 per cent of people who survive an attempt are still alive a decade later.
One interrupted moment can become a whole life.
Rebecca’s story
Part of hope is making sure those who witness suicide are not left alone.
When suicide happens in a public place, the pain doesn’t stay with one person. A neighbour, a transit worker, a first responder carries it home, and almost no support exists for them. Working with Dr. Rebecca Sanford at Thompson Rivers University, we are bringing those people together to shape the research and the care they need.
We are listening to them first, so the support we build is shaped by the people who need it.
Give every month or make a one-time donation. Be part of the hope all year.
Crisis doesn’t keep a schedule, and neither does our work. A monthly gift gives us something steady to count on, so we can plan ahead and respond quickly when new needs emerge. Your gift supports every part of the Crisis Centre’s work.
Give online and make your gift go further. Online giving is the most cost-effective way for us to receive your gift. It saves staff time on handling and processing, so more of your generosity goes to the work itself.
