WASHINGTON, D.C., October 20, 2007: The Hindu American Foundation has received a request from the Federal Mental Health Services. They are seeking a knowledgeable Hindu representative. If you are interested, or can recommend someone, kindly contact e-mail above.
The request reads: “We are currently working with the national Suicide Prevention Resource Center to develop an Interfaith Suicide Prevention Initiative. Our first task is to convene a relatively small meeting of leaders from different faith communities who have experience developing comparable interfaith initiatives. They do not necessarily need to have experience in suicide prevention per se, but they do need to be able to inform us about their faith’s general beliefs about suicide and its prevention. I know that, within each faith community, various ‘denominations’ hold different beliefs, and we expect that, over time, we may hold other meetings that look at these issues in more depth and with more specificity. What we need now are people who can serve as something of a steering committee to get us started in a good direction and help us plan the overall initiative. We will be extremely grateful for any help you can give us in identifying one or more people from the Hindu community who you think would be interested in helping us with this project.”