About Samaritans
Cyprus Samaritans was established in 1997 and is affiliated to the International Network of Befrienders Worldwide which operates in 38 countries over 6 continents. This organisation is run by Samaritans UK.
While
Cyprus Samaritans is not part of UK Samaritans, we work to the same
practices and principles as that organisation and our training methods
and materials are based on the ones used to train Samaritans in the UK.
Our
methods for selection and recruitment have developed over the years and
we use a variety of ways of assessing volunteers' suitability for
telephone listening. Of the people that apply to us about 20% are not
selected.
Cyprus Samaritans operates its telephone centre, manned
by volunteers, in Paphos. Our biggest challenge is our operating
hours. A full 24hr 7 days per week service is our aim but this will
require 100 to 120 volunteers to operate. We hope that over the coming
years we will be able to extend our operating hours. It costs €1800 per
month to run Cyprus Samaritans. The major part of this money is
generated by our shops in Paphos and Chlorakas and from a number of
events and donations. All the people who work in our organisation are
volunteers; we have no paid staff.
Confidentiality is a vital
element of our service, especially in Cyprus which is a relatively small
community. We have worked hard over recent years to ensure that our
service is confidential and we have introduced an agreement that every
volunteer must sign as part of the conditions of service.
