Campaigner wants to use own experiences to help others in suicide prevention drive

Rasham Singh Dulai has been through difficult times and has said he wants to use his own experiences of depression and suicidal thoughts to help other people going through similar issues.

The 57-year-old from Wolverhampton has started a suicide prevention campaign which he said he wanted to see go out to a national audience inside a year and internationally within the next decade.

The campaign has seen Mr Dulai put up his posters on bridges, at bus stations and car parks around Wolverhampton and the surrounding area with numbers for people to call if they need help. He said the issue is not talked about enough, particularly within the Asian community.

His posters feature phone numbers for organisations such as the Samaritans, Shout, NHS 111 and 999 for the emergency services, as well as Mr Dulai's email address for anyone who wants to talk to him directly.

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He said his own story had begun after his marriage had ended in 2005, leaving him feeling depressed and suicidal as a result.

He said: "I had never experienced any type of mental health issue before my marriage ended and I felt like I had lost everything and felt hopelessness, depression and anxiety as a result.

"You feel that you want to end it all and your life has been lost and this went on for about two years before I started to receive counselling, which helped me to recover for about four or five years."

Mr Dulai said he had suffered a re-lapse in 2011 when he was the victim of racial discrimination in his work as an engineer, then been the victim of fraud, which led to a nervous breakdown.

Over the next few years, Mr Dulai said he had attempted suicide on a number of occasions and spent time in and out of psychiatric hospitals before living alone on the streets of Birmingham.

After being helped by homeless charity Midlands Langar Seva Society, he began to turn his life around, volunteering for the charity at weekends and setting up his own homeless feed charity when living in India.

His return to the UK saw further re-lapses, as well as the tragic death by suicide of his nephew Mani Dulay in 2016, but Mr Dulai said he was now on the road to recovery and had never felt better.

He said: "I was in a really bad way for probably about six years and I've only really been fully recovered for about two or three months, but I really feel good now.

"I have a plan now with this campaign for it to be spread all over the UK in 12 months and I want to do more to promote it and bring attention to it, with an aim of it going international within 10 years.

'There is help out there'

"I have a focus now with this campaign, as well as studying law in my spare time and I'm setting up a Sikh community charity with a number of professional organisations and charities getting involved."

Narinder Kaur from the Sikh Women's Action Network (Swan) is one of the organisations joining up with Mr Dulai's charity.

She said the issues of suicide were particularly prevalent in the Sikh male community due to a lot feeling too proud to reach out for help.

She said: "A lot of men feel pressure or they are too proud to reach out for help.

"There are lots of organisations out there which can help, and I know Rasham is really passionate about this, but honour and culture is still really prevalent in the Sikh community.

"We at Swan want to help and we are part of that community as well and provide for that community, so we hope that can remove a lot of barriers for people looking for help."

Mr Dulai said the recent discussion around Meghan Markle and her struggles with her mental health had brought the discussion about suicide to the forefront and said there was help out there for those in need.

He said: "There is help out there for anyone who is feeling depressed and suicidal.

"The first thing you should do is go to your doctors and ask about getting professional help and if it gets really bad, then you should call the Samaritans.

"If it comes to it and you are at the point where you want to end it all, call 999. Don't do anything silly, just call 999 and ask for help."