The Fundació Ajuda i Esperança has received the support of the ICF for its growth projects in the care of adults in situations of unwanted loneliness and with mental health problems. The entity, with a long history in the social and emotional support and suicide prevention fields, is tackling its future projects with the collaboration of the Catalan Institute of Finance through a loan to finance its needs. The ICF has historically supported third sector projects to find funding solutions suitable for each project and organization.

In relation to the Fundació Ajuda i Esperança, more than 40,000 people contacted the organization during 2022, seeking comfort, help and support during a moment of anxiety, emotional crisis, risk of suicide or unwanted loneliness. The Fundació Ajuda i Esperança has been offering support to people for more than half a century, with confidentiality and without judgement, thanks to its pioneer telephone throughout Spain, the Telephone of Hope (93 414 48 48). To this 24/7 service, which continues to be a point of reference to fight against unwanted loneliness and mental health problems of the adult population, the Foundation has added in recent years two new devices to reach out to: the Telephone of Suicide Prevention, another confidential service that operates 24 hours a day, which was launched in the summer of 2020, as well as the Emotional Support Chat for Young People (679 333 363), an innovative service through WhatsApp aimed at teenagers and young people between the ages of 14 and 25.

Since the pandemic, we have been experiencing a mental health crisis. The alarms go off because of the feeling of unwanted loneliness, present at all ages, the increase in deaths by suicide and, especially, the emergency among young people. Adolescents and young people express great discomfort, with a tendency to depression and anxiety that can lead to suicide attempts and an increase in self-harm. In this context, the Foundation has seen how the number of calls and conversations have multiplied. Thus, during 2022 43,149 people called the Telephone of Hope. These are adults between 35 and 65 years old, who lived alone and experienced episodes of unwanted loneliness or emotional discomfort. The Suicide Prevention Hotline, for its part, received 5,987 calls during 2022, an increase of 3.6% compared to the previous year. Since its inception, the service has launched rescue mechanisms on 245 occasions, in cases where the person served was in a suicidal situation. Regarding the younger population, the Chat received more than 1,700 conversations during its first year of service. In this case, it was necessary to notify the emergency services 20 times, between 061 and 112 as well as 116 111 (Infancia Respon) because the person's safety was at risk.