Caritas expat helpline needs at least 10 more volunteers

Teresa Lai, Paul Pun, and Silvia Mohr (from left to right)

As the expat-oriented Life Hope emotional aid hotline launches today, the secretary-general of Caritas Macau, Paul Pun has stressed that the team needs ten more volunteers to work during additional hours.
In addition to its 24-hour Chinese-language hotline service, Caritas Macau and the Life Hope team will now start operating their first suicide prevention and emotional aid hotline, providing services in both English and Portuguese.
The new helpline (28525777) will be operating between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. from Monday to Saturday. Four volunteers and one staff member have been recruited.
“We need more volunteers. We need at least 10 more to be able to operate 10 hours or more per day,” explained Mr Pun at a press conference yesterday, which marked the launch of the expat Life Hope hotline.
He added that Caritas is looking for “good listeners who are willing to offer time and patience to help and listen to others.”
Candidates looking to volunteer with the new suicide prevention helpline do not need to hold any specific professional qualifications. In addition to being at least 21 years old and a holder of either a Macau ID or blue card, they will need to complete a three-month training and internship program, and to pledge to a one-year commitment to remain with the helpline as a volunteer after training.
The hotline is intended to provide confidential emotional support to those facing general distress or those who are having thoughts about self-harm or suicide.
Mr Pun reiterated that, “it is important to train volunteers adequately as good listeners.” To attract more volunteers, he added, there’s a need to prove that their hours spent waiting for a call will be worth it. “They need to be psychologically fit to handle the fact that they might not get calls but they still need to be there on duty.”
To further promote the new hotline, which did not receive any calls during its trial period, the team has also launched a Facebook page, entitled “Expat Lifehope Macao,” Life Hope hotline counselor Silvia Mohr explained.
“The Facebook page, which already has over 100 likes and 2,000 views, is a good tool for us to share information about the hotline,” said Ms Mohr, who holds a degree in Psychology and a masters in Counseling and Psychotherapy.
Ms Mohr will be in charge of training volunteers, as well as supervisory work and answering calls.
Their main goal for now is to attend to people’s needs and problems through the hotline, but they will try to help people wanting to talk face to face, too.
Mr Pun revealed that according to their experience with the Chinese hotline, which has been operating since the 1980s, people call mainly because of emotional distress from problems in their professional and personal relationships.  “They call not only because they feel lonely but also because sometimes they feel their life is hopeless,” he added.
The new helpline will initially operate for four hours per day, but the Life Hope team expects to expand it into an eight-hour service and ultimately turn it into a 24-hour hotline.
The Life Hope hotline is available at +853 28525777.