Report of visit to TELL, JAPAN

19 th . June 2001

Introduction:

Rudyard Harrison as International Board Chairman and I were hosted by Yukio Saito FIND for the day and visited Tokyo English LifeLine (TELL) and Inochi no Denwa (FIND).

Tell:

At TELL we met with Bernard; the Director of the centre, and discussed the service that is being provided. They have recently moved premises from out side Tokyo to almost City Centre. It is easy for counsellors to access the new premises and for most of them closer to where they live. We learnt that there are 1 1/2 million foreigners living in Tokyo but that only 10% of this number are English speaking. Many who call TELL do not have English as their first language and this is a major problem for the centre. Face to Face counselling is offered at a different location and run by social workers.

Bernard expressed concerns around fundraising as resources are limited due to large companies preferring to give sponsorship to National Sport and other such events.

The Govt. of Japan has recently acknowledged the impact of the increase in suicide on the National Economy and has dedicated 12 million Japanese Yen to be used to offer proactive programmes and services to communities. It is hoped that TELL and FIND will benefit from this funding. TELL has a well established development programme with qualified staff who are employed to train, select and supervise counsellors and service provision.

On the question of TELL's membership of LifeLine International it seems that while Bernard does liaise with FIND he would like to be part of the LifeLine International Organisation. Now that we have made a connection I believe we can follow up with TELL on this issue. It was not appropriate at this meeting to raise the question.

Find

We spent some time at the Tokyo Centre and met the staff and some of the members who were attending training that day. During our deliberations with Yukio I began to understand that when Yukio or others in FIND refer to 'life line' centres in Thailand or Japan they are using the word to describe a telephone counselling service and not referring to LifeLine, the specific organisation, as we know it. While this can complicate and mislead, I do not believe it is the intention to misuse our name.

We did not discuss the possibility of FIND becoming a full member of LifeLine International as in accordance with the decision at our Board Meeting I believe that BI, IFOTES and LifeLine International need to make a decision and ALL give the same message

Conclusion

Thank you to Rev. Yukio Saito for hosting us and not only taking us to TELL and FIND but also chauffeuring us around Tokyo, treating us to lunch and a fantastic walk through the East Gardens of the Emperial Palace.

Congratulations to TELL who are running a well managed centre in isolation and I hope that we can offer them a lot more support in the future.

2001.07.05

Sue Thönell
Exec. Director

LifeLine International