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The Butterfly Diaries

The 10th of September was World Suicide Prevention Day. It’s common to have suicidal thoughts. Engage wants to get people talking about how to survive suicidal thoughts and safely support the people they care about. The Butterfly Diaries is part of a mission to make it okay to talk and easier to find help. Engage has a big box of books waiting to be posted out right now.

The Butterfly Diaries is a creative book project sharing stories of hope and transformation from people who have made it through the experience of being suicidal.

Visit the Butterfly Diaries Page.

Or if you want to support our work, click here to make a donation to Engage Aotearoa.

Highlights from Engage Aotearoa’s Facebook Page

Here are some recent highlights from Engage Aotearoa’s Facebook page

Word Up! 2014: supporting our finest young poets, rappers, song-writers and comedians
Word Up! provides an opportunity for 13 – 20 year old singers, poets, rappers and comedians who write their own material to develop their craft and showcase their skills.

The Butterfly Diaries | Engage Aotearoa
The Butterfly Diaries is a creative book project sharing stories of hope and transformation from people who have made it through the experience of being suicidal. True, Kiwi stories of recovery as told by established writers in a variety of different forms.

Photography as a Balm for Mental Illness
An online gallery was created to provide a supportive community for photographers affected by mental illness.

18 Things You Should Never Say To Anxious People
“Don’t freak out, but….”

DHBs accused of underfunding NGO
People from more than 40 mental health and addictions NGOs have gathered at a public meeting to address political candidates.

Survey of Over 4,000 People Reveals Top 10 Depression Treatments
Most of us assume that medication is  go-to treatment option for depression. However, over 4,000 people believe other treatment options were of help.

 

 

Surviving Suicidal Urges: e-Resource Now Available

Surviving Suicidal Urges is an e-Resource sharing tips for recovery from the storytellers in The Butterfly Diaries, Vol 1.

View, save and share Surviving Suicidal Urges.

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The Butterfly Diaries is a creative book project sharing true stories of hope and transformation from people who have made it through the experience of being suicidal.

Storytellers took part in an interview and writers used the interview notes to turn their stories into creative works of fiction. The interview notes were also used to summarise each of the storytellers’ recovery strategies. These have now been collected together in the e-Resource Surviving Suicidal Urges.

Order a copy of the free book online to get the full story behind each set of tips.

You can find permanent links to this e-Resource on the Information Resources and Butterfly Diaries sections of the Engage Aotearoa website at www.engagenz.co.nz.

 

Supporting Someone Who Is Suicidal: An e-Resource from The Butterfly Diaries

Due to popular demand, the team at Engage Aotearoa has created an e-resource that shares the Storyteller Tips for Supporters from The Butterfly Diaries, Volume 1.

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The Butterfly Diaries is a creative book project sharing stories of hope and transformation from people who have made it through the experience of being suicidal.

True, Kiwi stories of recovery are told by established writers in a variety of different forms. Storytellers were interviewed by the editors and writers used the interview notes to turn their stories into creative works of fiction. The editors used the interview notes to summarise the storytellers’ comments about what supporters did or could have done to help them. These have now been collected together in the e-Resource Supporting Someone Who Is Suicidal.

Visit The Butterfly Diaries to order a copy of the full book, learn more about the project or connect with other suicide prevention resources.

Click here to view, save and share Supporting Someone who is Suicidal.

You can find permanent links to this e-Resource on the Information Resources and Butterfly Diaries sections of the Engage Aotearoa website at www.engagenz.co.nz.

The Butterfly Diaries Volume 1: Launch & Order Details

The Butterfly Diaries Volume 1 is a FREE book of inspiring stories and personal tips from four people who have recovered from the experience of being suicidal.

Launch Details:

NOTE: Event Moved to Sunday 13th of October due to rain forecast for Saturday the 12th. 

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Engage Aotearoa will be launching The Butterfly Diaries Volume 1 at Fiesta in the Park on the 13th of October for Mental Health Awareness Week. Come along to the free public concert and pop into The Butterfly Diaries Tent – a quiet corner covered in white paper butterflies where you can stop by to decorate a butterfly with a survival tip of your own, pick up a copy of the book, relax with a copy in the reading corner or listen to the authors and editors read from the book.

  • Where: Fiesta in the Park, Western Park, Ponsonby, Auckland
  • When: From midday Sunday 13 October 2012
    Reading Times:
    12:30 – 1:00 pm Michelle Bolton reads from Breathe and Breathe and Breathe by Phoebe Wright
    1:30 – 2:00 pm Owen Bullock reads from Enough Angels
    2:30 – 3:00 pm Miriam Larsen-Barr reads from Welcome to Today by Henrietta Bollinger
  • 3:30 – 4:00 pm Raewyn Alexander reads from Emerging from the Past, Transformed

The Butterfly Diaries, Volume 1
Four true stories of transformation told by four New Zealand writers.

  • Stories by Raewyn Alexander, Henrietta Bollinger, Owen Bullock and Phoebe Wright.
  • Foreword by Mike King
  • Edited by Miriam Larsen-Barr and Michelle Bolton

In Aotearoa, New Zealand, 1 in 6 people have suicidal thoughts each year. It is a normal human response to feel hopeless sometimes. It takes a great deal of distress tolerance, brute determination, skill development, support and understanding to survive the urge to act on those thoughts and feelings when they arise. But hardly anyone ever talks about suicidal thoughts and feelings, making it even harder for people to find out how to get through. The Butterfly Diaries gives voice to the stories of those who have been there and made it out alive. Sean, Jane, Mary and Brad have all been suicidal, survived their own suicide attempts and found their way to a place where they are glad to be living their lives. In The Butterfly Diaries they share how they strengthened their wings and learned to fly.

The first edition of The Butterfly Diaries Volume 1 will be placed in high-schools and GP waiting rooms across the NZ, to make recovery stories easy to find. Suicide rates peak among youth and most people who are suicidal visit a GP in the months leading up to making an attempt, even if they do not talk about how they are really feeling.

How to Order Copies

You can nominate a service or person to receive a copy of The Butterfly Diaries or order a copy for yourself by making a donation on the Engage Aotearoa website to cover the cost of posting your book. Just fill in your details and give the delivery address in the space provided. The minimum donation is set at NZ$2.50 (the cost of NZ postage and handling). A donation of $5 will get a copy posted for you and cover the costs of printing a copy for someone else.

Click here to order a copy of The Butterfly Diaries

Contact Engage Aotearoa for more information

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Want to help prevent suicide in NZ?

You can help get more copies of The Butterfly Diaries out there for people to read. Sponsor a print run by making a donation on the Engage Aotearoa website.  Every donation over $5 is tax deductible. A $20 donation pays for eight more books. A $500 donation prints enough books for a small school. 

Excerpts from Stories of Recovery from Being Suicidal are Now Live Online

The Butterfly Diaries creative book project is drawing close to completion. For nearly a year, six writers have been working to tell the stories of six Kiwis who survived the experience of being suicidal and found their way to a better place. The first three stories are now complete and excerpts are available for reading and sharing online. More samplers will be loaded as stories are finished.

Click here to read The Butterfly Diaries Samplers.

Read excerpts from…

Emerging from the Past Transformed: Raewyn Alexander’s creative essay about Mary’s Journey

Enough Angels: Owen Bullock’s haibun (a prose-poetry cross) about Sean’s journey

Breathe and Breathe and Breathe: Phoebe Wright’s short story about Brad’s journey.

Men & LGBT People Needed to Share Stories of Hope

The Butterfly Diaries is a creative book project that will share true stories of recovery from suicide, as told by established New Zealand writers.

Engage Aotearoa have teamed up with poet Michelle Bolton to gather ten personal stories of recovery and ten writers to tell their stories in creative ways.

Already six female and two male personal story-tellers have signed up for the project and begun their interviews to gather information for their writers. Personal story-tellers range in age from 28 – 62 years old and each one of them is a true example of how human beings can bring themselves out of a place of hopelessness, into a place of hope. Each person has their own strategies to share and The Butterfly Diaries team can already tell that they have a rich resource for the diverse needs of the community waiting to come out.

With so many personal story-tellers already signed up and in the interests of creating a balanced resource, the team has decided to reserve the last two personal story-teller spots for men or LGBT people who have recovered from feeling suicidal. Suicide is really common among these two groups and it would be really useful to have a variety of stories for them in this resource.

If that sounds like you or someone you know, visit The Butterfly Diaries webpage and get in touch with the team. 

The hunt is still on for NZ writers to help tell these stories in creative, entertaining ways – more information for writers can also be found online here!

New Suicide Prevention Project: The Butterfly Diaries