Salvos seek to target rural depression

The Salvation Army is battling to cut high suicide rates in the bush with a project
that includes a DVD showing people how to get help for depression.
Half a million free DVDs featuring four rural Australians talking about their
battles with depression will be distributed in country areas.
The Salvation Army on Thursday launched its Braver, Wiser, Stronger project DVD,
which also contains explanations of how to deal with depression and how to get help.
It comes after a South Australian study revealed the suicide rate among male
Australian farmers was almost 50 per cent higher than the average in rural
communities.
Salvos spokesman James Condon said the aim was to offer solutions to the "depression
crisis" across rural Australia, which often lacked GP and psychological services.
"We can't close our eyes and hope that it goes away," he said.
Thredbo landslide survivor Stuart Diver, who helped launch the DVD in Sydney, said
Aussie males often believed they could "take it upon themselves" to fix their
problems.
He said the project hoped to break down the barriers in seeking help when dealing
with depression.
"If you break your leg you don't get the plaster out and try and fix it yourself,"
Mr Diver said at the launch.
"I went to some very very dark places where I couldn't get out of bed for an entire
day, but through help and through people around me ... I was able to work through
that."
The DVDs will be distributed via the Salvation Army website and a hotline - 13 72 58
- as well as rural doctors and some local stores and service stations.
One of the DVD's subjects, Catherine Driver, who lives outside Charlton in
Queensland, said she'd been willing to tell her story in the hope of making a
difference.
"I believe that if I told my story and it helped one marriage to stay together and
stopped one person committing suicide then it was worth all the stigma I was going
to get out there," she said.
A number of well-known Australians are supporting the project, including actor Jack
Thompson, musicians Iva Davies and Troy Cassar-Daley, and former swimmer Duncan
Armstrong.