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Safaplace
Safaplace is a young charity that aims to support the positive mental health and well-being of young people and their community living in Stoke Newington and beyond, through support, education, and advice. The charity continues to fundraise, campaign on mental health issues and promote a programme of activities aimed at advancing positive mental health and wellbeing. It was established to commemorate the lives of Rachel Finke and Harry Lisle who died through suicide in 2016.
How does your organisation contribute to preventing suicide and supporting those affected by it?
In 2016-2017 our community was struck by the loss of two of our young people, Harry and Rachel. Since January 2017, and from donations initially collected by Harry’s friends, Safaplace has funded several different initiatives aimed to improve wellbeing and address mental health issues. Working to bring mental health to the fore in our community, Safaplace has funded peer listener training and sessions for families as well as for school staff. Fundraising events are taking place. A Safaplace Conference was held on April 2018, which aimed to bring together and share community expertise and experience; a further Conference took place in April 2019 focusing on the issues around the transition from Children’s services into Adult services.
Next year the conference will be on March 21st, 2020 at Stoke Newington School and will focus on Mind, Body, and Soul.
What are your current priorities?
We are a small, young charity and currently, we are prioritising education, support, and awareness-raising of the issues facing young people in order to prevent suicide and promote positive well being and good mental health.
We are also looking to influence our local authority in order to raise the age of transition for young people from 18 to 25.
What challenges are you currently facing?
Despite all being passionate about the work we do, the trustees are all working full time in other jobs so time is often an issue and we are still finding our way in terms of paperwork, etc.