Thomas Scovell

Earlier this week fashion designer Alexander McQueen was found dead in his home, having committed suicide.

On 3 February 2010, he wrote on his Twitter page that his mother had died the day before, adding: “RIP mumxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.” Four days later he wrote that he had had an “awful week” but said “friends have been great”, adding: “now i have to some how pull myself together”.

McQueen is someone I had admired for years, but as well as his death being sad for the world of fashion and even more so for his friends and family – it highlights the issue of suicide. A tragedy we have a notably high rate of in New Zealand.

Doing some research to find a charity to donate to I came across New Zealand’s national suicide prevention strategy which is worth a read if you are interested. I also came across the Charities Commission site which has a reasonable level of information on all registered charities – including financial reports if you are interested in double-checking claims made on web sites. Oddly, the one dedicated suicide charity I could find didn’t even have a website.

In the end I opted to go with Lifeline and Youthline who both provide phone counselling to those in need.

Youthline

Youthline’s site was odd to say the least. They appear to be using a shopping cart system for donations which requires you to choose from a fixed donation amount and “add to cart” before checking out. Oh but wait (live blogging the process inadvertently) – you then have to register for an account and verify via an email link before you can login and pay via DPS. Not exactly the easiest process. It seems that you can also buy books and t-shirts and they’ve shoehorned donations into this process. A pity as I can see this being too much trouble for some potential donors.

And then to cap it off – the success page came back simply with “Scotts test” not a thank you. Then I receive an email telling me my “order status” has changed. Oh dear.

Lifeline were much smoother – using the flo2cash system I have encountered recently which presents a receipt after a single page donation form.

[ Update: Youthline were quick to respond to me and assure me they were ironing out any kinks in their site - good stuff. ]

To play us out – a live tribute by Patti Smith to McQueen below.