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A group of London friends who tragically lost one of their closest friends early this year to suicide have set up a charity campaign in his memory.

A brother, a son, an uncle and friend Jeshan Ahmed committed suicide in January 2016.

His friends may never know exactly why but it is a tragedy that happens to people every single day at an alarming rate.

On average over 12 men a day commit suicide in the UK alone and according to the World Health Organization, every 40 seconds, a person commits suicide somewhere in the world.

Here his friend Adam Torr, London, describes the the call that changed his life forever:

On February 1, 2016, I received a phone call that changed my life forever.

One of my oldest and dearest friends had tragically committed suicide.

The shock and anguish I felt upon receiving this news is incredibly difficult to describe as it came straight out of the blue and shook me to my very core.

As the first one of my 30 or so friends in this close knit group to receive this horrific news I had to rally myself, get my emotions in check and then embark on the thankless task of calling my friends one by one to pass on this horrendous news.

(Image: The Sides of March)

Imagine receiving such a brutal piece of news as you soldiered thought your Monday morning routine at work and then having to subsequently call all of your best friends one by one and recount this news and turn their worlds upside down.

A few helped shoulder this burden to spread the news, but many, many difficult phone calls later at around 5pm after speaking to our last friend who was five hours behind time in Canada, everyone knew.

I could now let it all out. I cried solidly for the best part of an hour like I have never cried before.

This was one of the worst and most difficult days of my life but it must pale in comparison to how our dear friend Jesh must have felt in the end.

We may never know exactly what happened to our friend.

He was found over the weekend of the 23 January 2016 and the last anyone heard of him was his employment agency who he had text to let them know he wouldn’t be able to make it to work on Monday.

Imagine writing that text. Imagine the presence of mind in such a circumstance. That was Jesh though – a damn good lad until the very end.

(Image: The Sides of March)

We think - no we know - that he believed he was going to a better place in his mind, when over the following days, we tried to piece it together. He had said to one of our friends during the previous summer that he believed that he knew where we went when we died.

He said that we went to a happier place where all the troubles of the world didn’t matter anymore and we would all be together laughing and having fun like the good old days. We pray that you are right, old friend.

Jesh had lived a full life, loving travel, film, music and events with his large and close group of friends.

He was from a strong family unit based in Southgate, North London. We had all met in 1998 almost 20 years ago at a university in London and had been friends as close as brothers ever since.

All of us involved in this tragedy are blessed with an unusually large and powerful friendship group which made this news all the more shocking.

We are all incredibly close and have each other for support in everything we do, so we were all somewhat bewildered when we learnt that one of our own had felt so alone he had to do this to himself.

(Image: The Sides of March)

This is exactly the problem that we face in society today in that suicide is such a serious issue. It is the biggest killer of men under the age of 45.

Furthermore, male suicide accounts for 75% of all suicides in the UK. Men find it incredibly difficult to open up and talk about their state of mind. This is a fact. I was naive at the time and I think many people still are until it hits you. We want to help put a stop to that now.

On the back of this tragedy our large group of friends rallied together again to try to create some good from something so awful.

We created The Sides of March which is a charity fundraiser set up to raise awareness for suicide and how bit an issue it really is. The concept is simple, fun and above all it is for a great cause - during the month of March grow some sideburns for suicide prevention charities.

This year we are partnered with CALM, one of the UK’s leading suicide prevention charities and our campaign is just getting started. We aim to take The Sides of March global in our fight to raise awareness for the biggest threat to any young mans’ life.

If we can stop just one person from taking the path our friend Jesh decided to take it will all be worth it.

The Sides of March is a foundation set up to raise awareness for the UK’s biggest killer of men under 45, suicide.

During the month of March, grow some sideburns for charity, all proceeds go to CALM.

http://www.thesidesofmarch.com

For more information and to join the Marching Army:

Donate to www.justgiving.com/thesidesofmarch