Campaign Against Living Miserably, or CALM, is a registered charity based in England. It was launched in March 2006 as a campaign aimed at bringing the suicide rate down among men.
CALM promote a free, confidential and anonymous helpline (in London & Merseyside) as well as a web chat service (accessible via www.thecalmzone.net), open seven nights a week, offering help, advice and information to men who are experiencing depression or crisis. CALM also publish a bimonthly magazine, CALMzine, and maintain a website and online database. CALM currently promotes its services within two CALMzones: Merseyside, and London. Although CALM's service is targeted at young men, it takes calls from anyone who needs support regardless of gender or age.
CALM was commissioned by the National Health Service in Merseyside to promote its campaign since 2000, where since beginning operations the number of suicides amongst young men has fallen year on year by a total of 55% between 2000-2009.
Video Campaign Against Living Miserably
History
Pilot and relaunch
CALM was initially a Department of Health pilot project launched late in 1997 in Manchester with the help of Tony Wilson, and then rolled out to Merseyside in 2000. It was a helpline targeted specifically at young men who were unlikely to contact mainstream services and who were at greater risk of suicide. Jane Powell was commissioned to launch the project and ran it until 2000. When funding for the pilot project ceased in 2004/5, Powell relaunched the pilot as a registered charity in 2006 working with some of the pilot's original commissioners and with Tony Wilson as a founding Trustee.
In 2015 rapper and singer-songwriter Professor Green was named as CALM's patron, and the campaign's Trustees Board includes health professionals and leading figures from the worlds of music, advertising, and management, as well as relatives of men who have taken their own lives. Robin Millar and David Baddiel are former patrons.
The campaign has brought in significant pro bono advertising support from agencies such as Ogilvy Advertising, Tullo Marshall Warren, MTV, and Metro, and most recently Topman and BMB. This has brought CALM a significant amount of advertisements on billboards, on TV, in the underground and on radio.
Maps Campaign Against Living Miserably
See also
- Suicide in the United Kingdom
References
Source of article : Wikipedia
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