Wellington Young Enterprise group launches product to counteract suicide

  • 07/09/2016
Wellington Young Enterprise group launches product to counteract suicide

A group of Wellington schoolgirls has launched a new product it hopes will stick a message of positivity into Kiwis' minds and help counteract suicide.

It's simple: a 'Small Talk' sticker adorned with a positive or motivational quote, which is sold to cafés across the New Zealand and stuck atop takeaway coffee cup lids

Dreamed up by a St Mary's College Young Enterprise group, Small Talk was inspired by Mapo Bridge in South Korea - a structure famous for the number of people who jumped off and killed themselves, until it was decorated with positive slogans and saw suicide rates cut by 77 percent.

"We decided to take this idea of putting positivity into people's lives, and bring it to Wellington," Small Talk chief executive Emily Jenner told Paul Henry.

"Right now, if people are buying hot chocolates or coffees [from a participating café], they'll receive positive stickers on top of their coffee cup lids, just to add some positivity into their day and make them stop worrying about their stress for just a minute as they're reading the quote."

Ms Jenner says while they haven't got any exact figures on sales, all the business' profits are being donated to Lifeline New Zealand.

"We've been receiving such great feedback - people have come back to us and said, 'wow, this is amazing', 'we haven't heard of this', 'we need people to actually be standing up to this'," she said.

"That's how we've been getting cafés on board - they want to join in and make their customers feel more positive."

Newshub.