SOS Amitié is a French federation of several regional

charitable organizations A charitable organization or charity is an organization whose primary objectives are philanthropy and social well-being (e.g. educational, religious or other activities serving the public interest or common good). The legal definition of a cha ...

aimed at providing emotional support to anyone in emotional distress, struggling to cope, or at risk of suicide throughout

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan ar ...

, often through their telephone helpline. This helps people with their mental state and how they cope with life, this helps them regain their happiness and helps them fight off the worries and support them in every way in form of their state of their personal life.

History

The first association was created in

in 1960 in

Boulogne-Billancourt Boulogne-Billancourt (; often colloquially called simply Boulogne, until 1924 Boulogne-sur-Seine, ) is a wealthy and prestigious commune in the Parisian area, located from its centre. It is a subprefecture of the Hauts-de-Seine department an ...

, following the meeting of philanthropist Georges Lillaz with Pastor Jean Casalis and his wife, the first listeners of the SOS Amitié

Île-de-France The Île-de-France (, ; literally "Isle of France") is the most populous of the eighteen regions of France. Centred on the capital Paris, it is located in the north-central part of the country and often called the ''Région parisienne'' (; en, Pa ...

website, choosing secularism in 1970. It received 7,500 calls in the first year. The federation was recognized as a public utility by a decree on February 15, 1967. This concept of

charitable organization A charitable organization or charity is an organization whose primary objectives are philanthropy and social well-being (e.g. educational, religious or other activities serving the public interest or common good). The legal definition of a ...

originated in

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It is ...

under the name "The Samaritans" following the suicide of a 14-year-old English girl who thought she had contracted a sexually transmitted infection when she was actually

menstruating The menstrual cycle is a series of natural changes in hormone production and the structures of the uterus and ovaries of the female reproductive system that make pregnancy possible. The ovarian cycle controls the production and release of e ...

. Reverend

Chad Varah Edward Chad Varah (12 November 1911 – 8 November 2007) was a British Anglican priest and social activist from England. In 1953, he founded the Samaritans, the world's first crisis hotline, to provide telephone support to those contemplati ...

then placed an advertisement in

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' ...

on November 2, 1953: "Before you

commit suicide Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Mental disorders (including depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, personality disorders, anxiety disorders), physical disorders (such as chronic fatigue syndrome), and subs ...

, call me at M.A.N. 90.00", inventing the world's first telephone listening service to help those contemplating

suicide Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Mental disorders (including depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, personality disorders, anxiety disorders), physical disorders (such as chronic fatigue syndrome), and ...

, the desperate, isolated individuals, and anyone who felt unheard by others.

Operation

Now receiving over 700,000 calls per year, with just over a tenth of them in the

Paris region Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Si ...

, more than 1,700

volunteers Volunteering is a voluntary act of an individual or group freely giving time and labor for community service. Many volunteers are specifically trained in the areas they work, such as medicine, education, or emergency rescue. Others serve ...

take turns

24/7 In commerce and industry, 24/7 or 24-7 service (usually pronounced "twenty-four seven") is Service (economics), service that is available at any time and usually, every day. An alternate orthography for the numerical part includes 24×7 (usuall ...

, 365 days a year to ensure continuous listening (approximately 400,000 hours). The service is free, anonymous, confidential, and the dialogue is non-directive. Independent of any

political Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that studi ...

religious movement Various sociological classifications of religious movements have been proposed by scholars. In the sociology of religion, the most widely used classification is the church-sect typology. The typology is differently construed by different sociolog ...

, the

organization An organization or organisation (Commonwealth English; see spelling differences), is an entity—such as a company, an institution, or an association—comprising one or more people and having a particular purpose. The word is derived fro ...

operates thanks to subsidies from public authorities,

donation A donation is a gift for charity, humanitarian aid, or to benefit a cause. A donation may take various forms, including money, alms, services, or goods such as clothing, toys, food, or vehicles. A donation may satisfy medical needs suc ...

s from individuals or

entities An entity is something that exists as itself, as a subject or as an object, actually or potentially, concretely or abstractly, physically or not. It need not be of material existence. In particular, abstractions and legal fictions are usually r ...

, and patronage. Fifty local

s, spread across

metropolitan France Metropolitan France (french: France métropolitaine or ''la Métropole''), also known as European France (french: Territoire européen de la France) is the area of France which is geographically in Europe. This collective name for the European ...

, including eight in the Île-de-France region, are grouped within the Federation SOS Amitié

On the Internet

In addition to telephone listening, SOS Amitié has established an online listening service via

instant messaging Instant messaging (IM) technology is a type of online chat allowing real-time text transmission over the Internet or another computer network. Messages are typically transmitted between two or more parties, when each user inputs text and trigge ...

in a

web interface In the industrial design field of human–computer interaction, a user interface (UI) is the space where interactions between humans and machines occur. The goal of this interaction is to allow effective operation and control of the machine f ...

, following the same rules and ethics as over the

phone A telephone is a telecommunications device that permits two or more users to conduct a conversation when they are too far apart to be easily heard directly. A telephone converts sound, typically and most efficiently the human voice, into ele ...

. A chat dialogue is available every day between 1:00 PM and 3:00 AM, using a shared tool with Télé Accueil. A

messaging system In computer science, inter-process communication or interprocess communication (IPC) refers specifically to the mechanisms an operating system provides to allow the processes to manage shared data. Typically, applications can use IPC, categor ...

is available for individuals, with a response time of 48 hours. SOS Amitié Internet is an organization founded under the 1901 law and affiliated with th
Federation SOS Amitié France
The

recruits and provides specific

training Training is teaching, or developing in oneself or others, any skills and knowledge or fitness that relate to specific useful competencies. Training has specific goals of improving one's capability, capacity, productivity and performance. I ...

for a team of listeners who already have experience in telephone listening at SOS Amitié.

Participation in INPES Action

As part of the improvement of the remote prevention and assistance in health (PADS) initiative initiated in 2011 by the National Institute for Prevention and Health Education (INPES),« Téléphonie santé + Internet : des dispositifs complémentaires et personnalisés au service de chacun rchive», INPES, 24 octobre 2011. SOS Amitié and 16 other

s have developed their websites and worked together to improve the training of listeners. Some of these training programs are shared. For example, at the end of 2011, listeners from these

s met and received a weekend of training.

Pop Culture

The action of the movie "

Le Père Noël est une ordure ''Santa Claus Is a Stinker'' or ''Le père Noël est une ordure'' is a French comedy play created in 1979 by the troupe Le Splendid and turned into a film directed by Jean-Marie Poiré in 1982. Plot Pierre, a stuffy and self-righteous volunteer ...

" takes place within an organization inspired by SOS Amitié on

Christmas Eve Christmas Eve is the evening or entire day before Christmas Day, the festival commemorating the birth of Jesus. Christmas Day is observed around the world, and Christmas Eve is widely observed as a full or partial holiday in anticipati ...

French Bibliography

Dupont, Sébastien. Face à la solitude existentielle de l’individu contemporain : les atouts de SOS Amitié , Revue SOS Amitié, 2010, no 143, p. 24-27. Ferrand-Bechmann, Dan, Dir. Sicard, Didier, Préf.. L'écoute, au cœur du métier bénévole. Ed Chronique Sociale, 2020. 131 p. Reboul, Pierre, Dir., Comte-Sponville, André, Préf. Sortir du silence : L'écoute à S.O.S Amitié . Ed Chronique Sociale, 2016. 208 p. Sacco, Francesca. La magie de l'écoute : Entretiens avec des bénévoles de La Main Tendue et de SOS Amitié. Georg Editeur, 2019. 224 p.

References

External links

Website
{{DEFAULTSORT:SOS Amitie Charities based in France 1960 establishments in France