Suicides are Preventable.

The first World Suicide Prevention Day was successfully launched in Stockholm, on September 10th 2003 as an initiative of IASP and the World Health Organisation (WHO), designating the day as a way of focusing attention on the problem world-wide and confirming the message: Suicides are Preventable.

In IASP's July 2003 newsletter, the then IASP President, Professor De Leo, announced to all IASP members:

'This will be the day for all those people who have suffered because the worst of the human tragedies happened too close to them. This will be the day for governments to know that suicide must be a priority in their public health agenda. This will be the day for all people on the earth to recognise that suicide is an important problem, and if the World Health Organisation has decided to endorse this celebration it must mean that its dimension is huge, and that no one is immune from it. But this will also be the day for us, IASP members, who have dedicated and are dedicating our lives to avert suicide, and who, at the very least, have contributed to raise awareness, worldwide, on the size and stigma of this immense suffering'.

The International Association for Suicide Prevention (IASP) in collaboration with inter-government agencies, governments, NGOs, international and national associations, clinicians, researchers and volunteers use WSPD as an instrument to promote awareness about suicide and its prevention.

In a press released on 10 September 2003, Professor De Leo went on to say:


‘World Suicide Prevention Day aims to put the issue on the agenda globally and regionally, but it also seeks to show that action must be taken locally – and this action starts with you and me. The Day underlines the responsibility for all of us to help save lives that may be at stake. It is possible – we can do it.’