Samaritans is a registered charity based in the UK and the Republic of Ireland that provides confidential emotional support 24 hours a day to anyone experiencing emotional distress. Winchester and District Samaritans is an affiliate Branch, which means we self fund and do not receive any funding from the Central Charity. Samaritans’ Vision is that fewer people die by suicide. We work to achieve this vision by making it our mission to alleviate emotional distress and reduce the incidence of suicide feelings and suicidal behaviour. Samaritans relies entirely on voluntary support. It also aims to raise public awareness of issues around suicide and depression.
We train and support Listening Volunteers to offer emotional support by phone, email and by talking to face to face with visitors in our Branch Centre, which is based in a three story house in the centre of Winchester. We are completely self funding and run a fund raising programme to raise funds to support the running of the Branch. Other activities include the provision of outreach activities in local schools and colleges. The Centre is run and maintained by Volunteers, not all of whom are trained 'Listening Volunteers' but who work as Support Volunteers. Our Governance is based on an executive group called the Joint Leadership Team which includes a number of Trustees. We currently have 136 Volunteers.
