Annan Boodram, 66, a New York-based activist and advocate for the prevention of suicide and other social ills and a former school teacher, is using his life’s experiences to bring about positive changes in behaviour through mental health awareness, having courted suicide ideations himself.
Coordinator of the non-profit organisation Caribbean Voice, Boodram, who did not know he was suffering from depression when he was suicidal, told the Stabroek Weekend, “I was driven to get involved in suicide prevention because of my brother who suicided, another brother who had attempted suicide three times and losing an aunt to suicide. I myself had been suicidal more than once.”
Most of the advocates and activists of Caribbean Voice who do the ground work, he said, “vicariously experienced domestic violence or sexual abuse or suicidal ideation or have lost family members to suicide.”