THE Co Antrim-born chief executive of suicide and self-harm prevention charity Pieta House has been recognised by Ireland's marketing industry for his “brilliantly imagined” fundraising and awareness campaign.
Brian Higgins, who earlier this year was guest speaker at the Irish News workplace & Employment Awards, was named Marketer of the Year at an event in Dublin hosted by trade publication marketing.ie.
His address back in June focused on how businesses and their people must take responsibility for "walking towards the light" in terms of better workplace awareness, support and positivity.
Higgins is behind restructuring Pieta House’s annual “Darkness Into Light” campaigns, which the judges in these latest awards described as “one of the most compelling pieces of work that we have seen recently”.
The scale of achievement was “even greater when you consider the traumatic and emotive subject at the core of their work”, said the judges, noting that success of the fundraising programme came at a time of public scepticism due to corporate governance issues elsewhere in the charitable sector.
Pieta House provides a professional, face-to-face, free of charge therapeutic service for people in suicidal distress or those who engage in self-harm.
It has 240 psychotherapists in its 15 therapy centres across the country, supporting 5,500 people, while it has responded to a further 11,500 calls to its national suicide helpline.
