Media Pieces on Tokyo English Lifeline
Our 30th Birthday and extending our hours to 9am-11pm

As you may know, April 2003 is TELL's 30th birthday. As a celebration, we are extending our hours further to have the Lifeline available from 9am-11pm each day.

We are hoping this may make an interesting story for your publication.

I have also included the breakdown of our calls from 2002 and previous years explaining what topics we get calls on and who it is that is calling us. This includes what nationalities are ringing as well as age groups and gender.

If you are interested, I would be very willing to give you any further information you need or to conduct an interview as the Lifeline Director. Please feel free to contact me at lifeline1@telljp.com or on 03 3498 0246

Looking forward to hearing from you
Anthony Smith
Lifeline Services Director

1. April is Tokyo English Life Line's 30th Birthday!!

Tuesday April 1st is 30 years since Tokyo English Lifeline took its first call. We have come a long way in this time and rough estimates suggest we have taken up to 150 000 calls since we started That is a lot of people listened to. These calls were taken during almost 11,000 days that the line has been open. TELL has had thousands of volunteers over the last 30 years who have given their time and energy working on the line, fund raising or managing the service to enable us to be available for callers.

During this 30 years TELL has had a number of homes and a variety of services. We began in 1973 and spent almost all of the next 20 years beside Inochi no Denwa in the Lutheran Church in Iidabashi. We then had shifts to Shimouma and Gohongi near Yutenji station and then Tokiwadai before we settled in the current compound in Minami Aoyama.

During this time TELL had a number of institutions, one being Miriam Olson who spent 18 years as Executive Director and another being Tokyo Tapes, the service where you could ring in during the 1980's and 90's and ask to listen to a tape on the counseling topic of their choice! At different times, TELL had also dedicated lines for HIV/AIDS, Filipinos, Missionaries and teens.

Along the way we have won a "Culture and Health" award (on our 20th anniversary) and an audience with the Emperor. In keeping with our community service spirit, it seems a fitting way to both ourselves and the community to celebrate our 30th Birthday by extending our hours to cover the line completely from 9am to 11pm for the first time. That means that the Lifeline will be open to receive calls for 420 hours a month.

2. Extending our hours to 9am-11pm

From TELL's 30th Birthday on April 1st, we will be extending our hours on the Life Line to cover the entire period from 9am-11pm 365 days a year. The line is a free service for people to talk confidentially to a trained counselor about any topic they need to. People often call the Life Line to talk about relationship issues, depression and loneliness, cultural adjustment or to ask for information they need for living in Tokyo.

TELL 2002 Annual Report

TELL's Life Line Services trains our telephone counselors, operates the telephone counseling service, and offers listening skills training to the community. The Life Line has offered confidential counseling, crisis intervention, and information, free of charge, since 1973.

The Life Line, which operates every day of the year, is staffed by highly trained volunteers from over a dozen countries. Life Line volunteers, who remain anonymous, undergo an intensive 60 hour twelve-week training course that equips them with counseling skills based on active listening techniques. This is followed by a period of supervised apprenticeship on the Life Line, on-going supervision, and continuing education. In 2001, two training courses were conducted with over 85% of those trained joining our ranks as full-fledged telephone counselors.

The Life Line received 5218 calls in 2002 The content of calls has continued the pattern set since 1998: a shift towards a larger proportion of counselling calls. Information calls, which are requests for information uncomplicated by other issues, account for less than 30 percent of all calls. Callers are increasingly turning to the Life Line for the counseling in which our telephone counselors have been trained.

The past few years have seen an ongoing shift in caller demographics. English-speaking Japanese callers now make up the second largest group of callers to the Life Line. This change seems to reflect the increase in Japanese who have lived abroad or who are in international work or marital situations. The age distribution has also been consistent over time, with persons in the 25 to 35 age group accounting for the majority of calls.

Calls received in 2001: 5937
Calls Received in 2002: 5218

Content of Calls (%)   1999 2000 2001 2002 Information* 37.0 31.6 28.59 27.6% Relationships 11.7 8.3 11.03 12.5% Depression, loneliness, anxiety 14.2 13.2 13.67 22.8% Logistical, legal, visa, social services 9.1 8.3 11.74 3.4% Employment, education, career 4.2 6.1 3.90 3.9% Personal conflict 3.8 5.1 5.01 4.2% Sexual difficulty 3.3 3.3 4.61 5.9% HIV/AIDS 2.6 3.0 3.12 2.8% Pregnancy 1.8 1.5 0.91 1.0% Medical 1.4 8.8 8.59 8.3% Substance abuse 0.7 0.4 0.51 0.3% Suicide 0.6 1.2 1.05 2.3% Emergency 0.4 0.2 0.25 0.2% Other, unstated 7.0 9.1 6.85 4.6%

* Information calls are straight requests for information. Counseling calls account for over two-thirds of all calls.

Who is calling the Lifeline? (%) 2000 2001 2002 North America 35.3 37.96 33.4% Japan 21.2 20.73 29.8% UK 15.6 12.73 8.6% Indian Subcontinent 5.4 5.27 7.4% Asia, other 6.3 6.42 6.0% Australia, NZ 6.7 7.63 5.5% Continental Europe 7.2 7.43 4.2% South America 0.8 0.51 0.5% Africa 0.8 0.62 0.9% Unknown, other 0.7 0.70 3.6%

Gender of Callers 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 Male 45% 46% 47% 50.4% 49.9% 42.6% Female 55% 54% 53% 49.6% 50.1% 57.4%

Age of Callers** 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 Under 17 0% 1% 1% 0% 1.0% 2.8% 17-24 9% 8% 9% 9% 8.4% 9.8% 25-35 64% 56% 57% 56% 53.2% 47.1% 35-45 24% 31% 25% 26% 27.4% 29.7% Over 45 3% 3% 8% 9% 9.9% 10.6%

**The telephone counselor assigns the caller to an age group based on information disclosed during the call.