Samaritans receive record number of people contacting them, figures reveal

A record number of people contacted the Samaritans for help last year, new figures reveal. The charity said it received more than 5.7 million calls to the helpline in 2016 - an increase of nearly 300,000 on the previous year. The figures were released to coincide with the start of Volunteers' Week. Some of these calls were preventing suicides, said Ruth Sutherland, Samaritans' chief executive, who emphasised the importance of calls to the charity being free of charge. Excerpt from The Independent, read the full article here.