Ware

Welcome to Herts & Essex (Ware) Samaritans

At Herts and Essex (Ware) Samaritans we’re part of the national effort to reduce the number of people who die by suicide. Every 10 seconds Samaritans respond to a call for help. In 2024, the last year for which we have figures, 6190 people took their lives, the majority of them men. This is an increase on 2023 when there were 6069 deaths.

Suicide is not inevitable; it is preventable. The causes of suicide are complex, but we know it is both a gender and an inequality issue. Behind every statistic, we must never forget, is an individual with a family, and a community, devastated by their loss.

At Ware we currently have 138 listening volunteers, who spent over 43,000 hours on duty in the 12 months ending 31st March 2025. We took 27,022 calls and answered nearly 1011 online chats.

We stay connected to our local community and made contacts with people at events during Outreach activities.

Based on National Lottery guidelines, we can say that our volunteers’ time was worth nearly £981,000 over the year. Given our operating costs of just over £59,000, every pound we spent creates £17 of value in pursuit of our mission to reduce the number of people who die by suicide, so we believe we put our donations to good use.

We welcome enquiries from anyone wishing to become a listening volunteer or support volunteer at our branch. We have a waiting list that prospective volunteers are welcome to join and we will move as quickly as possible to get prospective listening volunteers selected and trained.

Our privacy statement

At Samaritans, privacy is at the heart of what we do. We are committed to protecting your privacy and the personal information that we hold. Read our privacy statement here.