Well over 1000 people took up Barbers Ink's offer of $22 tattoos to raise awareness of suicide and funds for Lifeline on Saturday.

More than 1000 queued down a central Christchurch street – some for more than five hours – to get inked for a good cause.

Christchurch tattoo parlour Barbers Ink offered five tattoo designs, each costing $22, to help raise awareness of suicide on Saturday, with all proceeds going to suicide prevention helpline Lifeline.

People began lining up outside the Tuam St store as early as 6.30am to bare their skin in support.

DAVID WALKER/FAIRFAX NZ A huge queue snakes down Tuam St as people wait to get into Barbers Ink to get a $22 tattoo for suicide awareness.

"Most people deal with this sort of stuff – mental illness, suicide – and that's for life and so is a tattoo," Barbers Ink owner Josh Waretini said.

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Waretini shared the idea for the event on the Barbers Ink Facebook page and "it just blew up".

DAVID WALKER/FAIRFAX NZ Giselle Lea, left, and daughter Jamila got matching semicolon tattoos from Josh Waretini, at the Barbers Ink fundraising event on Saturday.

"There's so many people. It's pretty damn cool," he said.

Having queued since 8.30am, Christchurch teenager Jamilia Lea got a matching semicolon tattoo on her wrist with her mum.

The 17-year-old's first tattoo is on her wrist beside the scars where she used to cut herself. Jamilia started self harming when she started high school aged 13.

DAVID WALKER/FAIRFAX NZ Josh Waretini, of Barbers Ink, completes one of the $22 small tattoos on offer to raise awareness of suicide.

"It just got too much, I didn't know how to deal with it," she said.

Although she felt she was passed that now, it was something she would always struggle with, she said.

Her mum, Giselle Lea, wanted to get the tattoo to support her daughter.

"It's a reminder of how far she's come because she's choosing to continue her story and there's no early end to it, which is what the semicolon represents."

Semicolon tattoos symbolise how authors use a semicolon when they could have ended a sentence but chose not to. The tattoo suggests people are the authors and the sentence is their lives.

Waretini said it was important to raise awareness of suicide, especially as Canterbury has the highest suicide rate in the country.

"A lot of people go through mental illness, depression, and not many people talk to their friends because they'll be judged.

"Especially in New Zealand, especially men – men have a stigma to be strong and not talk about their emotions. I thought if I get this together maybe people might open up a little bit more."

Waretini said they hoped to raise upwards of $10,000 for Lifeline.

Lifeline Christchurch branch manager Karen Crawley said the money raised from Saturday's event would help keep the phone service afloat.

Lifeline runs solely on donations and the work of volunteers. Crawley said the organisation's finances were "absolutely dire".

"Lifeline's been in Christchurch for 52 years, it started here in Christchurch, [but] we've only got the funds to get through to June next year and we need to keep the lines running," she said.

"The issues are increasing, the phoneline callers are increasing, the risk calls are increasing.

"We've had a 52 per cent increase in risk calls – that highlights the need for this service."