Uruguay is known for being one of the smallest countries in South America. Its population is less than four million and, according to various studies, for being the happiest on the continent. 

In this context, one statistic has caught the attention of many people in the country: at least two people in Uruguay commit suicide every day. That means 823 Uruguayans take their own lives each year, a rate of 23 suicides per 100,000 inhabitants. This is the third highest in the region, after Guyana and Suriname.

The Uruguayan Red Cross has taken on this critical through the project “Una vida más que una posibilidad,” which offers practical tools to prevent suicide among teenagers and volunteers. The project name can be interpreted in several ways: Translated literally as ‘Life, more than a possibility’, it sends the message that suicide prevention is possible, if people are given the right tools. Just as important, it sends the message that suicide prevention, and life itself, is not something that we can just leave to chance.

To find out more, IFRC Communications Officer Estefany Jiménez spoke to the project coordinator, Tatiana Linares, a specialist in clinical and health psychology.

Jiménez: I would like to start by asking you how you started this process around such a stigmatized and often unspoken issue? 

Linares: The process started with an open call to all volunteers from the different branches of the Uruguayan Red Cross, and then we interviewed them to get to know and understand the situations they were going through. 

We started the process with 25 volunteers from eight branches and four people from the technical team of the National Youth Institute. We met people who were going through complex situations, who needed psychosocial support and who even had suicidal thoughts. Or they knew someone who had or was having suicidal thoughts at the time.  

With this group we ran three virtual workshops on suicide, emotional intelligence and psychological first aid. This was complemented by a face-to-face workshop focusing on the practical part of the training. It was very inspiring to see the commitment and willingness with which they joined the project.

And how did this training process impact the mental health of the volunteers? 

It was a breakthrough, an opportunity for them to express their emotions openly, without judgement. I think it was very valuable for them to recognize and identify these emotions and then ask for help or support to deal with them.

They also set up an active support network, a chat group where they kept in touch throughout the process. They wrote and messaged each other daily, offered support to the group and were very willing to look after each other. This created a caring network to support them in different situations.

Two young Uruguayan Red Cross volunteers hug each other in a show of mutual support.

Photo: Uruguayan Red Cross

After this phase of training and supporting the volunteers, how was the process of working with the young people?

After the theoretical and practical training, it was the volunteers themselves, with my guidance, who designed and facilitated the workshops for almost 150 teenagers from two high schools and a youth centre in the municipalities of Guichón, Paysandú and Mercedes. 

Each workshop consisted of three days of sessions organized in phases: phase one, ‘I know myself’; phase two, ‘I help myself’; and phase three, ‘I help others’. 

As a product of the process, the young participants developed and distributed messages based on what they would like to read to another young person going through a difficult situation. In the schools, they put them up in the bathrooms, at the entrances and in other places.

Would you say that the project achieved what it set out to achieve or were the results very different from what you expected?

The first great achievement and strength of the project is that we managed to connect with the young people and get them actively involved in suicide prevention. We also managed to ensure that our volunteers are now trained to work on this issue. 

Some of the volunteers who took part in the project have even decided to dedicate themselves to mental health initiatives, which we did not expect but we are very happy about.

Tell us more about your work with adults. Have you also worked with older people at risk of suicide?

It was more about people who were interested in joining prevention efforts. The community of Guichón asked for our support to address this issue with the families of the young people we were working with, but also with professionals in psychology and social work, religious leaders and other adults who work with or provide services to young people in their daily work.

It was a very positive and challenging space that touched them in a very personal way. While their main motivation was to find a way to help a young person, they ended up sharing personal stories of suicidal thoughts. 

In these spaces we tried, with love, experience and knowledge, to break down the myths surrounding suicide: that it is hereditary, that we cannot prevent it, and so on. The result was so positive that they asked for more interventions.

With the support of the Uruguayan Red Cross, a group of adults come together to learn how to support the mental health of young people.

Photo: Uruguayan Red Cross

Suicide is surrounded by myths. Did this make the journey very challenging?

Yes, one of the first challenges was to talk about it openly, because talking about suicide is taboo and people, even our volunteers, believed that talking about suicide encouraged it. Changing that belief is a huge challenge, but creating a group of volunteers who could do that was also a huge achievement.

Learn more about IFRC’s efforts to promote psychological wellbeing in the communities we serve.

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