Concerned with the incessant and escalating rates of suicide cases among young Malawians, Global Business Research Consultants (GBRC) is set to launch a campaign against suicide and its causes in a bid to arrest the trend in the country.
According to GBRC, the launch, which is aimed at reducing the levels of people killing themselves will take place on January 28, 2023.
GBRC executive director, Shingirai Loga said the launch will also roll out a research, which seek to find out the causes of suicide among the youth in the country.
Said Loga: “The campaign is aimed at dissemination of information to the general public to fight against premature deaths which young people are facing as a result of suicide.
Loga: we need government’s support.
“This follows a public outcry that many people especially the youth in the country have committed suicide in the previous years.”
Loga added: “If we look at Malawi policy on its vision for 2063, it puts the youth, as future leaders of the country, at a high risk and yet the governance system of the country lies in their hands in the 2063 development agenda.
Loga said that most of the people who are in top governance positions today will not be there in 2063 take responsibility of their action hence the urgent need to involve the youth to be part of the agenda.
“Of all the people that are there today many will be very old, while many others will have died, it is these children that we are losing today who will be in care and control of this country.
“There is need for a collective effort among all stakeholders to fight against suicide – policymakers, the clergy, the corporate world, traditional leaders and many more and, there is a greater need to join hands to fight the malpractice, now before it is too late,” said Loga.
Loga said, If the situation is left unchecked and uncontrolled by 2063, the nation will be in ruins and a desert since we will have lost almost all young people.
He said: “We are currently mobilizing traditional leaders in Blantyre so that sensitize them on how we can work together to end the tragic.
“The rational for sensitizing the leaders is that, these are people who live with the youth in their communities and they can help to build a stable foundation for them.”
Loga said the situation is worrisome and needs to be checked immediately hence the need to put in place measures that would help reduce suicide cases including conducting a a truth-finding research on suicide in order to determine the main drivers of suicide cases in the country.
“The research that we are preparing to do is designed help policy makers to come up with modalities on best practices activities on how to control the tragedy,” said Loga.
The research, according to Loga, will take place in all the four regions and it will involve all the categories of people such as traditional leaders, university and secondary schools students teachers, corporate entities and many others, just to mention but a few.
“We therefore ask the government to give us full support during our the research for it is of national development whose primary aim is to build a better Malawi for the future generation,” said Loga.
