By Jeremy Sollars
The Lions Club of Warwick has put its money where its mouth is to support two local causes.
At its dinner last week, the club spontaneously decided to donate $1000 each to a project for a new war memorial dais in Leslie Park and to suicide prevention.
Local veteran and suicide awareness campaigner Johno Felton said he was impressed by with the Lions’ generosity after speaking at the club’s dinner about the proposed new sandstone dais, with the discussion also moving to the topic of suicide.
Lions president Con Lo Giudice said the club was keen to help address suicide prevention, which he said was a “big issue in regional areas”.
The Lions’ donation will go towards promotion of R U OK Day which will be held on 14 September.
The Black Dog Institute says that more than 2500 Australians die by suicide every year and more than 65,000 make a suicide attempt.
Suicide is the leading cause of death for Australians between 15 and 44 years of age and young Australians are more likely to take their own life than die in motor vehicle accidents.
In 2014, about 75 per cent of people who died by suicide were males and 25 per cent were females.
Factors that may contribute to suicide include stressful life events, trauma, mental illness, physical illness, drug and alcohol abuse and poor living circumstances.
There are also factors that increase resilience such as connections to family, friends and wider support networks.
Some people having suicidal thoughts might feel afraid to ask for help because there is a stigma around suicide.
For more information on suicide prevention visit www.ruok.org.au and www.blackdoginstitute.org.au.
