China – Do NOT Be Like Japan
It's obvious to some Chinese that not everything in Japan is worth imitating.
Japan has a suicide every 16 minutes or so.
Shanghai is setting up a suicide hotline to help teenagers in crisis.
Japan had more than 600 teenagers or younger take their own life last year.
A young Chinese girl wrote –
"I can only say sorry now. At midnight, surrounded by dark air, I touch my stomach, where a life is growing. How can I involve an innocent life in my situation now?
"Only a few days left. I've started to seal myself up, leaving no way out. My baby, I am a filthy mom."
Shanghai wants to help her and others like her.
There is already a teenage hotline for counseling and crisis managment but the social workers think a line devoted to suicide is necessary.
Let's see…which is easier, giving kids in crisis another phone number to remember or training counselors at the other end of a hotline how to refer them to the right person to talk?
Hmmm…
Whatever it takes to keep another young person from taking their own life is worth trying.
Do you know a teenager who has taken their own life?
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