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Sep 5 2021

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Sep 25 2020

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Jun 19, 2021

Sep 5 2021

SPLIT THE DIFFERENCE RELEASES A SUICIDE CAMPAIGN FOR MEN, WHY IT’S IMPORTANT TO TALK AND BE SUPPORTIVE

Key Details:

Split The Difference is a unique not-for-profit organisation focusing on supporting men and boys worldwide.
Our work is based on over five years of international research showing men and boys don’t have the same support as women and girls.
At the moment, we’re focusing on male suicide prevention, with 191 out of 195 countries in the world holding a higher rate of suicide for men and boys compared to women and girls.
Research also tells us men and boys often choose far more brutal methods to end their lives. This strengthens our desire to make a difference.
Over the next three months, on September 10, October 10, and November 10, we’re holding events to raise funds for future endeavours – the main one being the creation of a mobile suicide preventative app.
From September 10 2021, which is International Suicide Prevention Day, we will begin uploading exclusive interviews, with those who hold the topic of suicide close to their hearts, onto our Instagram page and other social media platforms.
On October 10, we will be holding a professional online conference titled “Male suicide, pathways out of pain”.
On November 10, World Mental Health Day, we’re holding a whole family event celebrating fathers and family. We will be encouraging local performers and businesses to get involved
We’ve labelled our campaign with the title, ‘An Hour of Your Time’, as we’d encourage people to give up an hour’s wage to support this.
There is no funding available for men and boys, to raise awareness and build funds for us to be able to create a world wide media campaign and to build a therapeutic, preventative suicide app we are asking people and businesses to support us and help us by holding fundraising activities, or simply raising awareness of what we’re trying to achieve.

Our website, which has more information about Split The Difference on the whole, can be found here: https://www.split-the-difference.com/.

Statement from Split The Difference:

Out of the 195 countries in the world, 191 have a higher rate of suicide amongst men and boys. Those in this bracket simply don’t receive the support they desperately need, and we want to put an end to this by raising awareness of the issue and creating a mobile app to provide those struggling with alternative courses of action.

We’re launching a campaign called ‘An Hour of Your Time’, kindly asking people and businesses to donate an hour of their wage or profit to support our work, and ultimately boost male suicide prevention. On September 10, October 10, and November 10, we’re holding events to raise funds, and we want you to play your part by either attending, donating, or both.

We will focus a large proportion of our preventative message in promoting a narrative designed to enable men to open up in a safe unchallenging way.

On September 10, International Suicide Day, we will begin uploading exclusive interviews, with those who hold the topic of suicide close to their hearts, Instagram will be a constant source of sharing @splitthedifference_equally.

On October 10, we’re holding an online conference titled Male suicide pathways out of pain. Professionals from all over the world will present a range of discussions on the lack of understanding, the reasons why the figures are massively higher for men and boys and explore why no focus has been made on their needs.

Interviews with both survivors and those who helped prevent an act of suicide. Deepening the knowledge of those watching sharing how we all matter, all make a difference, promoting life – Exploring also what’s next, the inequalities for men and boys and what needs to change to enable pathways into equality and support.

We are genuine in our work, we ask communities to help, there is no funding for men and boys, no focus on their needs that empathise or respect them, or treat them equally. If you can support Split The Difference in any way, we, and most importantly millions of men and boys around the world, will be eternally grateful. You can find out more information on our website: https://www.split-the-difference.com/.

Sally-Anne Burris, CEO of Split The Difference, said:

“As CEO, I have found the evidence and suicide statistics so abhorrent that it has motivated me to seek ways to prevent this from continuing. We want to raise awareness and give societies a safe narrative that says, ‘I am struggling’.

“There are many reasons men and boys contemplate suicide: shame, fear, isolation; it can even be they genuinely feel no one would miss them if they passed away. For many, it is they have carried emotional and mental trauma for too long.

“Over the last 12 months, I have been working with a range of different therapists, including psychotherapists, psychologists, and trauma therapists, to explore how therapeutic technics can be transferred into technology, providing those contemplating suicide with alternative choices.

“We have also been looking at developing a wellbeing app for children that will aid them in creating their own mental and emotional safe space, again in consultation with highly qualified professionals. This will be centred around a ‘hope and cope’ narrative.

“We are asking men, women, and businesses to help raise funds by donating one hour of their income or holding fund. This will enable Split The Difference to progress, raise awareness in leadership, services, and families, and develop what we know will be effective, preventative digital applications.”

Research completed over 5 years that contribute to this campaign

WHO suicide stats – file:///I:/Split%20the%20Difference/Research%20Documents/Suicide/2020%20suicide%20rates%20world%20wide.html

Istanbul Convention – https://www.coe.int/en/web/istanbul-convention/home?

UN Human Rights – https://www.ohchr.org/EN/pages/home.aspx

CEDAW – https://www.ohchr.org/en/hrbodies/cedaw/pages/cedawindex.aspx

Research into 15 countries legislative governance, the guidance, fiscal spending and equality for men and boys. In the UK evaluating and cross reference 21 acts of law, comparing men and women’s pathways in and out of services.

The result of this was the identification of 13 areas that were common denominators and contributors to the heightened suicide rates for men and boys internationally. https://www.split-the-difference.com/campaign/

Contact Details

talk2us@split-the-difference.com

CEO – Sally-Anne Milton

Tel: 0300 302 1560

Mobile: 07574067571

Sep 10 2021

Men and boys are dying because of world-wide discrimination from UN directives

Split the Difference sends formal request to all UN Members States for the formulation of a UN Men.

Split the Difference CIC has begun a formal campaign to request that all UN Member States, work together to formulate a UN Men to enable men and boys the same consultation and representation as it gives to the UN Women.

Just under 500 letters were sent to all UN Member States, situated within New York, the six committees, other organisations supporting the UN for example WHO, The world Bank, European Union, the African Union, the Arabi Union, the Commonwealth and more. Letters were also sent to Presidents and Prime Ministers and news agencies across the world.

In July 2010 a global network was created in every country to enable a platform where women and girls were able to be consulted with and give them the opportunity to influence legislation and guidance.

This has been an extremely positive action from the United Nations, allowing countries to understand the needs of the women and girls in their communities. It has improved a deeper understanding of the barriers to areas like health, education, leadership, and the responsibilities governance has within its communities.

At this time, the United Nations should have maintained equality, its human rights directives and shown its responsibility to both genders and created a UN Men. Not doing this has created a massive disparity in knowledge and understanding of the needs of men and boys and is directly discriminated against them receiving services they so desperately need.

Split the difference has been priming its organisation to take action and strongly request the United Nations takes responsibility for the direct and indirect discrimination it has shown against men and boys and urgently begin formulating the same opportunities for them as it has women and girls.

Sally-Anne Burris, the Chief Executive Officer of Split the Difference says: “By not providing the same platform for men and boys as it does for women and girls, the UN has disabled them from being included in the formulation of major influence in conventions, legislation and guidance that has been promoted throughout the world.

“A major example of this is the Istanbul Convention. This was adopted by the European committee of ministers on 7 April 2011. This convention is to prevent and combat violence against women, it has been one of the most significant UN directives and has now become one of the greatest influences within every single piece of legislation, impacting on areas like education, health, housing, family court, criminal court and more.

“What it has single-handedly done is create pathways in every area of society that is responsive to women and girl’s needs. It is also promoted the inclusion of consultation within all forms of legislation providing women and girls with a voice in how governance should be applied. At the same time this convention and the subsequent legislation each country has formulated has actively excluded men from the consultation processes disabling their ability to have their needs assessed and included into the legislation equally to women.

“It has stripped men and boys of their human rights and has directly and indirectly disabled equality in the services that are currently being delivered in frontline services.”

Split the difference has looked at over 15 countries exploring conventions formulated by the UN and their impact on legislation guidance and frontline services within each country. They have looked at consultation processes research statistical mapping and fiscal management. In their work they have spoken to services in all of these countries including education and training to professionals who deliver day-to-day services to men, women and their families.

Sally-Anne Burris says: “The outcome of this work has shown that the assumption in law that men and boys will automatically be served is actually an illusion. One of the key red flags to governance that is telling us that we are getting this wrong in the discrimination against men and boys is that out of 195 UN states, 191 hold the highest rate of suicide for men and boys some younger than 10.

“These rates are held by the world health organisation and in some countries it is as high as 5/6. This cannot continue, the model of enabling consultation and inclusion in legislation is already there within the UN Women, what needs to happen now is the United Nations needs to mirror that model have consultation and inclusion, assess and understand where it’s gaps are and allow men and boys to have the same equality by formulating a UN Men.”

Split the Difference has now secured a lead for its legal team, Arpu Kumar a bright, intelligent and professionally driven international human rights lawyer has joined the team and has begun building a comprehensive strategy to approach the UN under equality and human rights.

The intention of the organisation is to build a team of ethically motivated legal minds who are willing to work with the not-for-profit organisation to put pressure not only on the UN committees but also the individual countries.

Through discussion they have secured interest from some international human rights lawyers and are currently looking at how they’re able to fund the changes that need to be put in place for men and boys.

Sally-Anne Burris says:” We have been in discussion with highly qualified long-standing human rights Chambers both in the UK and other countries, from presenting the evidence that we have on direct and indirect discrimination that men and boys experience we are told there are strong grounds for legal challenges and our aim is to pursue this.

“The next step for us is to request that we meet with all 195 UN leads to discuss the way forward in bringing the rights of men and boys into the same position as women and girls currently hold.

“It is an illusion that men and boys are served by governance, the absence of a UN Men is a very simple but very poignant representation of the discrimination they experience. Split the difference has 13 campaign areas that are significant in disabling a man and boy’s ability to thrive within their families and community, these will be the focus of our legal challenges in approaching the United Nations.”

Editorial notes.

The UN creates conventions that are designed to influence how countries formulate legislation guidance and policy. They advise countries on how to follow due process to ensure that they are serving the needs of society equally. When a country signs up to a convention their responsibility is to then follow the guidelines as it implements either new legislation or reviews existing legislation.

The UN currently has over 560 conventions that influence the ways that countries are run by their governments. They are designed to create a unilateral approach to legislation and governance and present within human rights, trade and many other areas. Countries are also evaluated based on whether they are implementing the conventions, so the pressure on countries to adopt and work by these conventions can be massive.

There are many conventions that split the difference are interested in currently the dominant one is the Istanbul convention. The reason for this is, this convention has drawn from research and evaluation that is gender biased, the consultation process to formulate it was gender biased, the narrative it is written in is purely to serve women and girls. Because of the nature of this convention in that is designed to protect women from violence it as threaded itself through every legislative guidance you could possibly think of throughout the world.

To have such a powerful dominant convention that not only takes in family court, children’s services, police and security, criminal court, where you would understand it to be present and of course the need for it. This convention can also be seen threaded into health services, adult education, housing contract law, business, child’s education, broadcasting, it is basically found within every element of society that is created to serve, protect and help communities thrive. All of this and it excludes men and boys.

Over the last 12 months the convention has seen Istanbul leave its governance, being the 1^st to ratify when it was created. Other countries for example Poland and Turkey are also considering leaving, all have their own reasons the dominant one is regarding gender.

No one denies that protecting human beings from violent relationships should be a priority for governments what you are seeing is a world that is considering the convention as being something that doesn’t satisfy not just men and women but also it does not match with other legislative provision these countries have in place.

On hearing that there are some countries considering leaving this convention it has created protests and debates within many areas of governance. Those who are protesting are drawing on facts and stats that are biased and don’t represent the experience of women and men. For example in the UK, women services through Covid were quoting evidence that violence in the home had risen when police statistics had actually shown that these figures had fallen. While we can debate on why the evidence is saying familial violence is decreasing, the violence experienced by men and their children by female partners does not have the same abilities to be correlated.

An example of this is, in the UK when a woman presents and discloses she is experiencing domestic abuse, the services available to her which will count her as a statistic are far greater than that of a man.

A woman potentially can become a statistic for the police, victim support, women’s aid, children’s services, health, legal aid, family court, MAPPA, MARAC and children’s education services.

When a man discloses here is experiencing domestic abuse because the services are not available for him it is highly likely he will only become two statistics, the police and victim support where he may receive a phone call after an incident.

What this means is that a woman reporting one incident in the UK could become multiple figures within the statistics but because the services are not designed to serve men in accessing them his disclosure to the police or services becomes less of a head count. When Split the Difference spoke to front line police they say that their call outs to domestic abuse is 50/50 male and female.

Because of the Istanbul convention, the domestic abuse bill and the violence against women and girls strategy, is designed to serve women and girls the fiscal management of grants and government services focus on them. A community charity for men reported that 99% of the funding in the UK was spent on the provision of services to support women and girls between 2019 to 2020 even though the statistics say that a third of domestic abuse victims are men.

Because of the discrimination of men and boys within legislation what we know is 87% of those experiencing homelessness are men and boys, one third of the population in the UK experiencing domestic abuse are men and boys. These are very basic stats in every area we looked men and boys were discriminated against, within health some simple examples are in the UK we have preventative screening for breast cancer and cervical cancer, but we have no preventative screening for prostate cancer and testicular cancer.

In education generally 30% of boys are failing in comparison to girls, young men are 20% more likely to drop out of further education. Two out of three suicides in the UK are men and boys some younger than 10 years old.

A natural state of humanity is to want fair access and equality and the services we can find in all of our communities. Providing women with the UN Women and not providing men with a UN Men is unacceptable and is a clear example of how governance is in itself perpetuating, direct and indirect discrimination and it’s time to change that.

Contact Details

talk2us@split-the-difference.com

Tel: 03003021560

Mobile: 07574 067571

If you would like to use any of our media, video or photographs, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Sep 13 2021

Press release regarding the selling of the car to raise funds

To be able to fund a campaign for men and boys, Sally-Anne Burris the chief executive officer of Split the Difference has reached a point where she has no choice but to sell her car to fund the campaign over the next three months.

After having no ability to source funding for the work she’s doing, Sally has spent the last five years funding split the difference from her income and savings. Having no success in securing funding from normal sources for example grants or procurement and realising that her own funds were about to dry up Sally made the decision to make one last attempt to get her work funded.

An hour of your time is a campaign that has three focuses. The first is to raise awareness on the heightened rate of suicide internationally for men and boys. The second is to make a formal request to the United Nations that they formulate a UN Men to enable men and boys to have equal representation within the UN conventions, legislation and guidance. The third is to raise funds for the work split the difference does.

The work we do is to enable parity for men, it is so that children, families and communities have the ability to thrive. Where everyone has an opportunity to live within governance that doesn’t discriminate regardless of their gender.

Sally-Anne Burris says:” Some things are bigger than us, when you do the research and you look at services and you look at why men and boys don’t have the same opportunities it is not hard to see why suicide rates across the world are higher for men and boys.

“What is happening is wrong, it is below us as human beings, the impact on families and communities has a massive cost. I believe we all have a responsibility for each other, we all know someone was lost a father, brother, worse still a son. We all know fathers who have lost as children through family court processes that don’t seem to have made any sense.

“Prostate cancer, testicular cancer, these have preventative screening and yet men and boys are not provided with this. Homelessness internationally has the highest figures for men and young boys. Legislation, guidance, policy within areas like homelessness, family court, domestic abuse all of these strip men of power, in societies that are meant to respect human rights these policies refuse to allow men the same respect or choice.

“How can you not take this to the absolute limit and surrender things that mean nothing in terms of sharing the responsibility in caring for the men and boys we share the world with. There are 10 men and boys in my immediate family they range from mid-30s to 2 years old, how can I look them in the face when I know what I know and not stand up for them.”

Sally believes that we all have a responsibility to each other, the campaign is asking individuals and businesses to donate one hour of their income. Sally is producing media for the campaign, interviewing first responders, professionals, therapists, police, train drivers, and others who are expressing an interest to share their voice, their story.

There are two main questions are slightly adjustable depending on who she’s talking to, they are what were your thoughts and feelings the first time you found out someone you knew had taken their own life? The second question is if you had one more hour with them what would you say and do?

For first responders or strangers questions assign accept it says, what were you thinking the first hour after you would worked to prevent someone taking their life and if you had one more hour with them what would you say or do.

Sally says one of the major reasons for this is that when somebody is considering suicide as an option there are a few dominant thoughts that come into the equation one is that the person’s feelings, their sadness is not something they feel is fair to share with someone else, they are reluctant to burden others and sometimes there is shame particularly with men. It is also often very hard for somebody to just begin to formulate the words they need to say.

The questions are designed to be real and honest, to open authentic answers ultimately to show that in actual fact someone taking their life matters, even if that person is a stranger, they matter.

All the people Sally has interviewed so far have all said the same thing it’s never a burden and always the best choice.

The work that needs to be done by Split the Difference is something that cannot succeed without the support this campaign hopes to achieve. Sally says:” We need people who can influence society, People who are balanced who are willing to learn, understand and know what needs to be done and has the courage to positively promote the needs of men and boys.

“To continue we have no choice but to reach out and ask others to contribute.”

Split the difference has been funded by Sally for nearly 6 years in total, the organisation has a very balanced perspective and believes that everybody should have the same choice. Her work is at the level that is directly facing the UN and policy makers.

Spending the last of her assets on this campaign she says probably seems crazy, but when the truth and evidence is clearly in front of you, Sally says: “There’s no other choice available”.

How split the difference continues this work depends on the support from individuals and businesses. The initial campaign is to run until 10 December, the UK will see TV adverts on the screen, internationally Split the Difference will attempt to produce its own media, telling stories and interviewing influences.

Sally plans on requesting face-to-face meetings with influencers within each country that is a member state of the United Nations. Sally says: “Five years ago after the initial first year of research I promised myself I would do my absolute best to raise awareness and request men and boys have parity. In terms of being able to work full-time at this or being able to achieve results, I believe all you need is courage to stand up and say excuse me this is wrong and the leaders to be able to face them and say your responsibility is to serve your communities while you doing it.”

Editors Notes

Local TV will be advertising the campaign, the launch date is believed to be the first week in October it will show on local TV channels across the whole of the UK for 12 weeks.

Sally is hoping to raise awareness through TV, radio and online interviews, she has already been part of many of these but hopes the campaign will generate interest.

Stats and evidence can be supplied by Split the difference, further information can be requested regarding this by email.

The Narrative Split the Difference is promoting for men to reach out is;

Contact Details

talk2us@split-the-difference.com

Mobile: 07574067571

Tel: 03003021560

If you would like to use any of our media, please contact us.

Sep 25 2020

UK Parliamentary petition, review legislation, policy and strategy for equality for men and boys

Men and boys are being locked out of desperately needed services in the UK and all UN member states, resulting in premature death, homelessness and major mental health issues.

Split the Difference a project that has made its mission to support men and boys in receiving equal rights to women and girls, has successfully opened its first parliamentary petition requesting that UK government review all its legislation, policy and strategies to include men and boys.

The organisations lead Sally-Anne Burris said: “We cannot continue to ignore facts and evidence that has been screaming at our leaders for decades. “While women and girls have become privileged by government spending that consistently focuses on their needs, our men and boys are having their basic needs trampled over and ignored.”

Split the Difference has spent the last 5 years carrying out national and international research that has shown a deep-rooted inequality for men and boys in the United Nations member states.

In their research they have identified 13 areas that are common denominators in breaking human rights and equality laws by not supporting men and boys equally to women and girls.

On July 1st 2020 a formal request was made to the UN management committees that they support an international campaign to hold countries to account, requesting they review all their legislation, policies and strategic planning to include men and boys or be gender neutral.

Sally-Anne says: “In every single country across the world the suicide rates for men and boys some younger than 10 is higher than women and girls. “In some countries the ratio is as high as 5 out of 6. “This one single fact alone is telling the UN that our men and boys are in crises and that ignoring their needs has no place in humanity.”

Split the difference is currently working with other UN countries to set up management committees who will assist in petitioning their own governments.

Editors Notes:

Split the difference is an organisation designed to raise awareness on the inequality of men and boys within services that required to include them equally but are failing to do that.

On 1 July they launched their campaign by sending every country in the United Nations headquarters and individual signed letter requesting that all UN countries review their legislation, policy and strategies including fiscal spending. Letters were also sent to the 15 observer agency situated within the United Nations and key influences.

Split the Difference is currently working with other countries to set up management committees who will also support the campaign within their own country.

Using statistical, fact-based evidence and reporting on the issues that men and boys are facing internationally, Split the Difference intends to maintain a consistent approach until governments begin to facilitate change.

The basis of this campaign is five years of research that is shown governments have placed women girls into such a privileged position that they are now actively excluding men and boys from fundamental representative positions, for example the United Nations itself hosts an organisation called UN Women.

This female lead organisation covers every single country across the world, it influences leadership, legislation, policy, strategic planning and fiscal spending. It enables women to have clear defined pathways, in consultation and assessment of women’s needs in all areas, for example health, education, leadership and management, conflict, natural disaster, sustainability and every other area where frontline services and inclusion are present.

While women’s needs are rightly served within the United Nations promotion of human and equality men and boys are disabled from the same voice the same influences.

The UN and all member states should by their very nature never allow themselves to be in a position where they can be challenged in areas of equality and human rights. While formulating UN Women they did not implement the voice of men and boys by providing a similar platform i.e. UN Men.

In all areas of equality there are promoted within the United Nations world celebration days for example women and girls are consistently represented their needs and achievements promoted extensively, this is not the same for men and boys.

It is easy to verify the climate for men and boys simply by visiting the United Nations media and website. The UN’s representation of equality and its multitude of pages and information focuses only on women and girls, a prime example of the exclusive nature of the United Nations directives.

Split the Difference holds the belief that in all situations, equality is situated in the right to have a voice, to participate in consultation and to be able to make choices. Currently because of the way governments and the systems within them have been set up choices no longer available for men and boys.

Photos that can be used (please enquire if you would like to use any of our media)

Colleagues in Africa

London March to Downing Street

Colleagues in Africa distributing food to the homeless through some of our support

Organisers and demonstrators in London march

Split the Difference CEO Sally-Anne Burris and Journalist interviewing demonstrators

Sep 11, 2020

Press Release – 12th of September 2020

Split the Difference is a new organisation created to support a campaign requesting the United Nations review all the legislation policy and strategic planning to narratively include men and boys. This campaign is the result of five years international research that showed unilateral evidence that…

Jul 29, 2020

Press Release 02/07/2020

Press Release 02/07/20 The launch of the Split the Difference campaign for men and boys. Split the difference has released its campaign to support men and boys asking all 195 United Nations member states to review their policies and strategies to be fully inclusive of…

Jun 19, 2021

Walking in Edinburg for Men and Boys.

CAPITAL MARCH CELEBRATING MEN & BOYS MOVED TO 19th June 2021
Edinburgh’s “colourful, inclusive, and positive” event celebrating Men & Boys – and highlighting the many inequalities they face in accessing services – has been moved from 20th March 2021 to the 19th June 2021…

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