Please watch this video first: 

LIFELINES PEER-SUPPORT PLATFORM

“No one ever needs to be alone”

Q: How will Lifelines change the world?

Through Lifelines, millions of hurting people will find a compassionate listening ear.

My name is Alan Langsford, and I am building this Lifelines fundraising page in support of the mother of my son, Sophia Athena.

Sophia’s vision is to provide a compassionate listening ear to millions of people in pain through peer support.

Sophia understands the pain of mental anguish and loneliness and despair. In early 2014 she almost died of suicide until she caught a lifeline. A compassionate online peer supporter connected with her; validated her experience and listened to her.

A peer supporter saved her life!

You can read her story here: “Don’t Give Up” (click on the link)

Because of the lifeline she received, Sophia is determined to create millions of lifelines for others. For the millions of people who are struggling with mental pain and despair. By creating an online peer-support platform called Lifelines.

Lifelines is a secure and trusted online platform  that provides a compassionate and confidential lifeline through online peer support and counseling services to people who are hurting, marginalized and alone.

There are nearly a billion people globally who experience isolation and mental pain and despair and every forty seconds someone tragically died of suicide. Sources: WHO, OurWorldInData (click on the links).

With the Lifelines peer-support platform, no one ever needs to be alone.

Join us in throwing out a lifeline to someone in need!

Q: How does the Lifelines platform function?

This platform will enable organizations to provide long-distance support to their members, even to those who are in remote places.

You can see a prototype of an organization’s page using the LifeLines platform here: America’s Veteran Support Network (click on the link).

As an online platform (website and apps), LifeLines can be used by multiple organizations to provide peer support for people that they are supporting or for member care purposes.

The LifeLines platform will be available as a website and apps on iOS and Android so that it can be easily accessible from anywhere in the world.

Schools, organizations, communities, or even individuals who want to support their own students/members/friends who are struggling can use Lifelines.

Each organization (the client) will have its own LOCKED, PRIVATE PAGE through the LifeLines Platform (website and apps).

The members of that organization who want to volunteer as Peer Supporters can register themselves and create their profiles on the organization’s page. And members who are looking for a Peer Support can browse through the list of Peer Supporters and directly request for connection.

Q: How will your contributions be invested?

Sophia designed all the system (UX design) for LifeLines, but she can’t code. To turn her design into real product, Sophia has to hire programmers to do the coding work.

Analogy: think of Sophia as the architect of LifeLines and the programmers are the construction workers who build the building based on Sophia’s design.

The money being raised will be used towards hiring programmers and building the fully functioning website and apps and to pay the technicians to maintain the platform, also to do technical support service for users and to cover other operational expenses.

Please consider donating to build this project and throw out a lifeline to those in need.

I will be grateful for your kind support. Every cent counts.

If you have any questions about this project, about me, or Sophia, please don’t hesitate to contact me.

From the deepest part of my heart, thank you.

Alan Langsford

Additional information

• Sophia is a trained researcher and has a graduate degree in business management from Capilano University, Canada, in which she received full scholarship and bursary from the Canadian Government.
• This is the link to Sophia’s Linkedin Profile: http://linkedin.com/in/sophiaathena
• Sophia wants to design LifeLines to be self-sustaining in the end so that it will be available indefinitely. That’s why she had designed it as a for-profit “social venture” (a For-Purpose Business), not a non-profit venture. But to make this happen, first she needs to raise the seed funding to build the platform. Sophia will need the fund as soon as possible, because the group of programmers that she is going to hire is available at this moment, but they might have to go work on other contracts for other people if she cannot raise the funds needed.