Derby and District Samaritans

Our vision is that fewer people die by suicide.

“Thank you for listening to me when I was at rock bottom.  You saved my life that night.  Because of Samaritans I still have my family and something to live for.” 

From our Branch base at Burton Road our volunteers provide emotional support 24/7 every day of the year by telephone, email and online chat on a free national helpline.  We also link with Foston and Sudbury Prisons, training prisoners to be listening volunteers and support their incredibly challenging work.  Our volunteers  are highly trained to listen and provide non judgemental support.  We won’t tell our callers what to do and our service is confidential. 

We also work to promote a better understanding of suicide, its impact and the value of expressing feelings which might lead to suicide or impaired emotional health and wellbeing.  We love to work in partnership with other organisations in the city and county and have a range of offers including the provision of literature and listening training.

Quite simply, suicide is preventable and talking can save lives.  Every life lost to suicide is a tragedy.  Every single day there are hundreds of people in the UK finding life incredibly hard, needing to be heard and feeling they have hope.  Every 10 seconds Samaritans answer a call for help. When life is difficult, Derby Samaritans is here to pick up your call and listen. 

Last year Derby Samaritans volunteers worked over 6,193 hours to keep our Branch running.  We responded to nearly 18,000 calls by phone, email, and online chat.  We give our time free.   We are an independent Branch affiliated to Samaritans and it costs us over £35,000 to keep our Branch open.   

• – £5 ensures a Samaritan volunteer can be there for someone struggling to cope.
• – £100 will keep our Branch open for a day.

One of our key strategic objectives is to build a sustainable, viable, outward facing organisation which is truly embedded in its community. We feel our strategic objective is aligned with those of Marketing Derby and look forward with relish to take part in activities and contribute to the betterment of our city and its welfare.