Lithuanian lost eight friends due to suicides and staged a flash mob to talk about the number of suicides
A colleague of Arunas Sakalauskas committed suicide due to alcohol abuse. A year later, his classmate committed suicide. Then two more colleagues, a friend and an acquaintance. He lost eight men. Other stories also reached him - someone's mother, someone's father, brother or partner committed suicide.
In Lithuania, people commit suicide three times more often than in other European countries. About a thousand people a year - that is, almost three people a day. The authorities are doing nothing. In big cities, volunteers work on the helplines, but they can only take every fourth or fifth call.
Arunas is an actor. He urged people through Facebook to give money for the functioning of the psychological help line - now operators will be able to take every second or third call. He also invited 1,095 people to lie down on the main square of Vilnius, symbolizing the number of suicides committed in the country last year. About 500 people came - despite this, the flash mob attracted the attention of the media and the public to the problem.
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Keywords: Vilnius | Lithuania | Square | Suicide | Flash mob