To write love on her arms

Ask yourself this, can one person make a difference? Can one person change the views and outlook on another person’s life? Well the answer is yes one person did; Jamie Tworkowski
“I came home and there was some hard stuff happening with my family. On a couple of different days, I wrote “love” on my arm. It was for me, a reminder I guess, and I decided I was okay with people seeing it. Love is a pretty good thing for people to see,” says Tworkowski on the To Write Love On Her Arms website.

To Write Love On Her Arms or TWLOHA is a non-profit organisation and creates awareness and gives hope to young people struggling with depression, drug-addiction, self-injury and suicide. Suicide is the second most leading cause of death in today’s youth. 
The inspiration to create the organisation was Renee Yohe. Renee battled with self-injury and drug addiction. What helped her gain the strength to get help were her friends. 
The five days before Renee was admitted into rehab are told as “The Story” on the TWLOHA website. Prior to rehab t-shirts were made and sold in Orlando to help fund Renee’s drug treatment. Well known bands such as Anberlin and Switchfoot showed their support by wearing the TWLOHA shirts. Soon after youths with the same problems started to message TWLOHA on MySpace. This project, beginning just to help one person, started to spread and help thousands! 
Through the power of MySpace young people from all around the world from countries like Canada, United Kingdom and here in Australia, started to show their support by buying the TWLOHA shirt.

The exposure of TWLOHA is mainly from bands that are associated with TWLOHA that show their support by wearing t-shirts to their gigs and photo shoots. 
Bands from our own soil that show support to the organisation are Sick Puppies who crazed the world with their song for the ‘Free Hugs’ campaign. Other bands include Avalon Drive, Repeat Offender, Dextors Conscience, Dave Poweys and Goodnight Combat Fighter. I recently had a chat with Michael Beatson the guitarist for Ellington. I had asked him what TWLOHA meant to him.
“Well firstly TWLOHA to me just opens doors to what I think is the most important issue in society and most importantly in the youth of the world. The next generation. Everyone’s different and deals with problems differently and a lot of people these days never know where to turn. Besides the Christian way of turning to Jesus, and the ‘old’ way of turning to your elders for support and encouragement. They now just take the ‘easy way out’ or just harm themselves for a rush of adrenalin, or to see they’re still alive and feel pain. 
With depression most struggle to feel everyday feelings like happiness and excitement, even guilt. They just feel so tight and empty with no drive to live.

This is just what I’ve seen and/or experienced with talking to many friends and strangers about issues in their life … 
There is so much more involved that I don’t know. Even the professionals don’t know … But one thing people need to know is that they’re not alone. There is hope. There is a future, rescue is possible” I was told a very scary statistic that there are 21 million attempted suicides in the world every year. That’s pretty much the population of Australia every year trying to take their own lives. It’s not only depression, it’s abuse, substance abuse, addictions, with many things all leading towards it. “On top of all that, the percentage of depression is rising each and every year. I believe it’s something like one in five people have depression and one in three never get treated. But don’t quote me on that.” Michael says creating a smile emoticon.
“So to me with music and the following I receive, if I can change one person’s life that means the world to me. To everyone, it’s someone’s loved one. No one likes to see them hurt. Its just trying to create some hope!” Michael finishes with a quote from Tworkowski himself “Hope is not a myth”.
 TWLOHA website on: http://TWLOHA.com. 
You can also show your support by ‘friending’ TWLOHA MySpace: http://myspace.com/towriteloveonherarms.
 Want to talk to someone? Lifeline is a 24/7 phone counseling service. Phone 13 11 14.