Staff Reporter
Gunjan Sharma, a third year medical student at Cardiff University of the United Kingdom has won the first prize in a global essay competition.
The Competition on ‘Suicide Prevention in the UK and India,’ was open to all individuals, groups and organisations worldwide.
An independent panel of judges evaluated the entries.
Synoptic Synthesis
According to the Panel, “The essays gave an incisive and synoptic synthesis of the world literature, focusing on improving knowledge about the ethno-aetiology of suicide and suicide prevention and its implications for practice. The literature took into account the evidence for the assessment, recognition and treatment of suicide and suicide prevention in diverse cultural contexts, diverse ethnic and cultural groups, and diverse communities.”
Other winners
Gary Hodge, a Registered Mental Health Nurse at the Plymouth Community Healthcare received the second prize for his essay on ‘Suicide in an Ageing UK Population: Problems and Prevention,’ while Kenneth Okpomo, an independent Researcher and Scholar won the third prize for ‘Global Suicide and Suicide Prevention.’
London based Centre for Applied Research and Evaluation‐International Foundation (Careif) conducted the Global Essay Competition.
A Charity registered with the Charity Commission for England and Wales and a company limited by guarantee registered at Companies House, Careif has a number of relationships and interests in the UK, Asia, Middle East, Europe, Africa, New Zealand, the Americas and the Caribbean.
Promoting mental health
Founder and Director Dr Albert Persaud said that much of Careif’s work was to preserve and protect good mental health
“The main aim of Careif is to share knowledge about mental health in order to improve people’s wellbeing. This includes how to live healthily and ensure that working practices and services are suited to different cultures and societies across the world. It delivers its work through four distinctive building blocks, which are high quality learning and teaching locally, nationally and internationally; research, evaluation and practice development into culture and wellbeing; to provide international volunteering, exchange and twinning schemes and to promote and develop positive practice on sports, young people and wellbeing of individuals and communities.
“Our essay competitions have become a defining pillar of the charity’s work. They aim to gather clues to understand better some of the most critical health and social issues across the globe,” he said.
“Suicide is complex with psychological, social, biological, cultural and environmental factors involved. Every year, almost one million people worldwide die from suicide; this roughly corresponds to one death every 40 seconds. About 75% of suicides are in low and middle income countries,” Dr Persaud added.
Two related reports appear in this Section.
