Help! I need somebody

MANAMA: For the last six years, a volunteer force of 20 people has been helping distressed people in Bahrain.

Helpline was founded by a group of socially conscious individuals: Vani Krishnan, Suresh Karunakaran, Mariam George and Florine Mathias, to give those with problems an outlet for their grief or frustration and on many occasions, give them the resources to tackle these problems.
Helpline was conceptualised by Vani Krishnan, who has always played an active role in the social work scene in Bahrain. “People have been calling me and asking me for help for a long time,” she said. “When the calls increased I figured I needed some help with managing them. It was then that I thought of Helpline.” Having read up on similar organisations around the world, she then enlisted the help of like-minded people — Suresh, Mariam and Florine who embraced the idea.
 Marshalling volunteers proved to be an encouraging turn as they answered a write-up in the local newspaper enthusiastically. Today, Helpline has up to 20 volunteers on a round-the-clock six-hour shift basis, which means that at any point, there is someone to answer a call. This movement reaches out to people of different nationalities as they have a cosmopolitan volunteer force that speaks up to 10 regional Indian languages and others, such as Tagalog and Sinhalese.
“Our volunteers are keen individuals who are well equipped emotionally to listen and help troubled people,” Vani explained, “we meet every month to update our volunteers and discuss difficult cases, but never the callers. Our volunteers are very competent and we co-ordinators are always at hand to provide advice on complicated cases.” There is an average of 63 calls a month spread over the volunteers. Of these 40 per cent of the calls are related to labour and immigration issues, 21 per cent related to medical and psychological issues, 28 per cent regarding marital and domestic problems and eight per cent concerning parental issues.
In most cases, they listen to those who simply need a sympathetic ear or a shoulder to cry on. In cases, that need expert advice, such as medical or legal assistance, Helpline volunteers help callers get in touch with professionals who are willing to help them. In all cases, callers are guaranteed complete anonymity. Helpline emphasises that they do not provide any financial relief, as they are a purely volunteer service. 
Helpline doesn’t restrict its role to just listening to callers. It has adopted a pro-active approach rather than a reactive one and aims to educate the masses about various issues. They have conducted many lectures and talk shows to make people aware of certain problems.
For more information, call 39873357 or 39134027

Radhika Ravi