Papageno Award Seeks Best Suicide Prevention Stories of 2025

The Papageno Award invites journalists to submit works on suicide prevention published in 2025. The author of the best story receives a €1,000 prize, with the winner announced on September 10, 2026, Suicide Prevention Day. The award is being given for the fourth consecutive year.

The Papageno Award organisers are calling on journalists and other media professionals to submit stories published in 2025 in newspapers, radio or television that support suicide prevention. Applications should be sent by email to ersi@suicidology.ee no later than July 10.

What is the Papageno Effect?

The award is named after Mozart's opera "The Magic Flute", in which the character Papageno considers suicide but abandons the idea thanks to the support and help of others. From this story, suicide prevention has derived the so-called Papageno effect. Research shows that stories about people who have come through crisis and found alternatives to suicide can have a supportive impact on others in difficulty. Such stories offer hope and demonstrate that finding help is possible even in difficult circumstances.

The award aims to recognise journalistic work that carries the message that no one is ever alone, and to raise awareness that writing about suicide requires great responsibility.

Jury and Prize

The submitted stories are judged by a panel that includes experts in the field, journalists, and people closely affected by suicide. The author of the best story receives €1,000 and the winner is announced publicly on September 10, 2026, on the international Suicide Prevention Day.

Previous Winners

The award has been given for four consecutive years. In the first year, 2022, the first prize went to Gunnar Leheste's story about tennis player Katriin Saare being saved through a life-changing phone call. In 2024, the best award was given to Kerttu Jänes' article about a teenage girl's suicide death. In 2025, Kirsti Vainküla won with a story published in Eesti Ekspress about suicide expert Merike Sisask, whose husband chose death instead of life.