Jeevan, the Jamshedpur-based suicide prevention centre, is concerned about school children ending their lives during the Covid pandemic.

The pandemic-related situation is showing some signs of improvement with activities opening up but students continue to remain stressed and require adequate counselling to deal with the situation.

According to statistics made available by Jeevan, 22 school students chose to end their lives between January and September. While the figure was 2 in January, it was nil in February and March. The number of suicide cases involving students read 2 and 1 in April and May, respectively.

However, the number of suicide cases shot up to 4 in June followed by 5 in July. It was 3 in September and 5 in October.

“It’s a dangerous trend and reflects on the pyche of the students who are feeling stressed due to some reasons or the other, including pandemic. The number of suicides cases were more from June onwards when the pandemic was its peak,” said Jeoraj Jain, director of Jeevan.

According to Jain, they were very concerned with the rise in suicide cases involving students and have planned to organise a webinar later this week.

“We will be involving students from standard VI to X for the webinar. Teachers will also be a part of the proceedings,” said Jain.

“We think parents are putting too much pressure on their wards. Parents should not put unnecessary pressure on their children and allow them some liberty. Children should also learn how to handle failure. We think the upcoming webinar would make students aware about how to handle difficult situations with help from teachers. Parents would also benefit,” Jain informed.

Jeevan will be inviting experts, including psychiatrists and motivational speakers to address the students at the webinar. “We will shortly contact school principals and inform them about the programme. Teachers play an important role in guiding students in challenging times,” Jain pointed out.

The Bistupur-based suicide prevention centre organises `Jeevan Trophy’ every year on September (World Suicide Prevention Day) wherein schools who organise maximum number of programmes on how to minimise stress level gets the prize. We could not organise the event this year owing to the pandemic. But it’s an important programme and schools really look forward to it,” the Jeevan director added.

Jain lamented that telephone numbers of Jeevan were still not adequately shared.

“The East Singhbhum district did help us by putting up posters at different localities and public places but we think more publicity of our numbers was needed. Our volunteers are continuing to help people who need help,” he said.

One can reach Jeevan volunteers on: 9297777499,, 9297777500 (only call), 9955377500, 9955435500 (call or Whatsapp).