1. What is Puducherry Youth Helpline?

It is a telephone support for young people (age 19 to 35 years) to share their feelings and get help to find solution to their day-to-day life challenges. It provides the following services: Counselling, Education Loan Support, CareerGuidance, Job Assistance, Fellowship and Entrepreneurship. The helpline is available from Monday to Saturday, 10 AM to 6 PM.

2. Is this crisis helpline for suicide prevention?

People are often so confused or off balance or upset that – at least at the time – they are in danger of making a very bad decision. Suicide is a final and irrevocable act. It is a permanent solution to temporary problems. Many people taken her or his own life without ever knowing that help is just a phone call away. Youth suicide rate in Puducherry is four times than national average. 2015 National Crime Record Bureau Report mentioned that 68% of the victims are in the age group of 14-35 years. Hence, these are groups of people more at risk for suicide. Puducherry Youth Helpline is founded to support people in suicidal crisis or emotional distress. Many people find that talking about their feelings can alleviate their distress. If you’re feeling in distress or suicidal and need to talk to someone right away, we are here to listen and provide emotional support.

3. If people at the age groups of 14-35 years are more at risk for suicide, why is your service only supporting people age 19 to 35 years?

There is CHILDLINE, 24-hour, free, emergency phone service that will respond to the need of the age groups 14-18 better. The toll free number, 1098, provide appropriate assistance to children in need of care and protection. You can know more about CHILDLINE from http://www.childlineindia.org.in/1098/faqs.htm. However, we provide some readings to help you better understand your situations and to figure out if you might need professional help. Please check this: Question and Answer About Teens Situations.

4.How the confidentiality of the callers is maintained?

We want you to feel safe when you talk to us. We use a log to record the calls we receive and the type of service we provide in responding to those. This way, it will be easy for us to provide follow up actions, such as regarding Job Assistance or Educational Loan Support. However, we respect your wish to be anonymous and will proceed that way. We do not share our log to third party.

5. Why are you providing this service? Aren’t you going to encourage people to commit suicide by providing them space to talk about it?

People are often anxious and afraid of what they don’t understand, so the stigma exists because of fear. The stigma is the punishment for breaking the taboo – talking about suicide was once considered as taboo. World Health Organization (WHO) in its recent publication, Preventing Suicide, A Global Imperative, listed the most common myths about suicide and provided the facts around that to help us understand better. Thus, to save more lives.

6. Who can be benefited from your Counselling service?

Anyone who calls our helpline will be benefited from our Counselling service. We believe in giving a person the opportunity to talk about her or his feelings, providing empathetic ears, and listening without prejudice. However, for those at risk of serious harm, we will refer you to professional help. Puducherry Youth Helpline works together with National Mental Health Programme, Directorate of Health and Family Welfare Service, Government of Puducherry, for this matter.

7. Who can be benefited from your Education Loan Support service?

Anyone who wants to pursue education but having a financial issue can be benefited from this service. Financial institutions like bank provide Educational Loan to deserving/meritorious students for pursuing higher education in India and abroad. The scheme also provides financial assistance to the needy poor to undertake basic education. We have compiled information from various banks related to this scheme and we can walk you through this process. We can also connect you to personal donors should your financial situation is urgent, for example you have to pay your outstanding tuition fees before you can sit for your exam.

8. What can we expect to get from your Career Guidance service?

Working is the most important element of adulthood’ life as the responsibility for being financially secured falls into individual adults. A job, or occupation, is a person’s role in society. More specifically, a job is an activity that is performed in exchange for payment (“for a living”). Therefore, people have to be very clear about what they want to achieve in life. Such clarity is required before decision to go to college is made for particular profession requires specific educational backgrounds.

When you call us for this inquiry, we will discuss with you the answer for the following questions: what should you do with your life; what are you really passionate about; what are your innate strengths; what career will economically satisfy for you; and how will you contribute to the world. We work together with Labour Department, Government of Puducherry for skills development. The list of courses and training are exhaustive, range from plumber (general) to apparel sector – there are 22 options available.

9. What can we expect to get from your Job Assistance service?

People usually send us her or his CV and informing us their expectations about what kind of job they are looking for. We will do our best to find the perfect match. We also conduct mock interview to help people perfect their interview technique, get valuable feedback and coach on their performance. We welcome your visit to our office premise for this service should face-to-face interaction will help you better in articulating your expectations from our service.

10. How many people were benefited from your Job Assistance service to this date?

As of October 2017, 4 out of 20 people were benefited from this service. The reason for this low turnout is it took times to match the candidate’ qualifications and expectations with the demand from the industry/business sectors. For example, some candidates expect for certain amount of salary, while the industry/business usually offer very fix amount of salary for fresh graduate without working experience. The industry/business requires some basic software skills like proficiency in MS World or speaking and writing in English, while the candidate is lack any of this. However, we do our best to find the perfect match and encourage candidate to acquire some working skills by connecting them to our Career Guidance’ service.

11. Who can be benefited from your Fellowship service?

People who want to serve for social cause issues that are close to their heart can be benefited from this service. Muhammad Ali, was an American professional boxer and activist, once said that, “Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on Earth.” Therefore, fellowship is a perfect opportunity for those who want to scale the social impact of her or his social cause for it provides funding, rigorous curriculum for your personal development, as well as mentorship to strengthen your leadership capabilities. We have some network from which we get information for fellowship opportunities. We usually share the opportunity information on our Facebook Puducherry Youth Helpline Page.

12. What can we expect from your Entrepreneurship service?

We work together with Entrepreneurship Development Cell (EDC), Government of Puducherry for this service. EDC is established to create awareness and proposes entrepreneurship spirit among students of schools and colleges in Puducherry. We welcome your visit to our office premise for this service. Thus, we can elaborate further on your business proposal and how to move forward.

13. What are things that we can do to prevent suicide?

Every one plays a role in suicide prevention. You can be the difference for a loved one by offering support and understanding:

• Encourage them to tell their story in their own way and their own place.
• Listen in a non-judgmental way. It is important for people to have the opportunity to vent. Often being listened to in confidence, and accepted without prejudice, is enough to help someone through a time of distress.
• Offer a gentle word of support. You can choose any of these to start the conversation and to show her or him your support: “Is there some way I can help you to feel safer right now?” “Can you tell me what it’s like for you – feeling this way?” “I’m feeling afraid for you, and I’m going to help you find help” “Tell me what’s been happening for the past few days”.
• Make a difference in a life. Educate yourself about suicide in order to overcome any preconceptions you may have or discomfort you may feel talking about the subject. You can promote the helpline by spreading the word about Puducherry Youth Helpline. In our Youth Resource Center, you can read books, journal articles, and suicide prevention series (published by WHO) to have better knowledge about the issue. Thus, to help raising awareness on suicide prevention. Puducherry Youth Helpline is a help that you can connect to for it provides space for your feelings.