📋 Tender Overview
Everyone needs help sometimes. Distinctive yellow signs with this text are beginning to appear around the railway offering people in a crisis situation immediate contact with the First Psychic Help Line. In this way the railway administration responds to the long-term problem of suicides on the tracks the initiative was created in cooperation with the National Institute of Mental Health and the organization Cesta z krise. At the same time a campaign to promote mental health is being launched.
Roughly 200 people die on railways in the Czech Republic every year more than three quarters of these deaths are suicides. Each such event in addition to the tragic human dimension also has a significant impact on the flow of traffic on average it is stopped for one and a half hours.
The railway is one of the safest modes of transport. If someone dies on the tracks it is most often a suicide. Every step that makes it easier for people in a crisis to get immediate help makes sense. It is the signs at risky places that can decide that a person picks up the phone instead of making an irreversible decision and tries to solve the situation differently said Minister of Transport Ivan Bednarik.
We knew about a number of localities where tragic events are repeated. We therefore teamed up with experts and the idea for clearly visible signs with a contact to the crisis line was born. We found inspiration in Britain Canada or Slovakia. The result is a simple tool that should stop a person at a decisive moment and direct them to help said Tomas Toth CEO of the Railway Administration.
In the pilot phase of the project yellow signs were installed in 12 places across the Czech Republic. These are locations where suicides have occurred repeatedly in the past. One of them is Pragues Stromovka through which the main international line to Germany passes. After evaluating the pilot stage the Railway Administration plans to expand the signs to other locations.
Foreign experience shows that measures work directly in the places where people most often take their own lives. And sometimes visible contact is enough for crisis help. At the same time this does not mean that the person in question just moves. A suicidal crisis is often very intense but at the same time short. Even a small delay can help to overcome its most critical moment described Eva Tuskova head of the working group for suicide prevention and research at the National Institute of Mental Health.
Availability is key to helping people in need. The first psychological help line is the only crisis line in the Czech Republic that operates 24/7 and is free for callers added Jarmila Kubankova director of Cesta z krisis. Anyone can contact our number 116 123 for example people who are worried about their loved ones. Together we will find a way to reduce the risk of suicidal behavior as much as possible.
Along with the installation of signs in the field an awareness and prevention campaign about mental health also begins. The key visual works with simple graphics the motif is an inscription symbolizing inhalation and exhalation. It should lead to stopping calming and be the first step to solving a difficult situation. The campaign will appear on advertising media in railway stations throughout the country and also on social networks.
