They are the helpers whose voice one hears but whose face one never sees. They are the first port of call for troubled souls, alleviating loneliness for a few moments, directing the depressed to professional help, raising the alarm on child abuse, gently pushing people into dealing with addiction, gingerly pulling others away from the brink of suicide…

They are the volunteers who man Malta’s major helpline, Supportline 179, run by Appoġġ, the national social work agency that provides welfare services for children, families and the community.

They do not do it for the glory – there’s none to be had in being faceless. They do it out of a genuine desire to be of service and to derive personal satisfaction from giving something to others. Simply by listening when a person pours out his/her troubles and offering some practical advice about starting on the path to recovery they are performing invaluable acts of kindness that, for the callers in distress, may make the difference between sinking and swimming.

Their mission is to provide immediate assistance to callers of all ages seeking support or information, often giving them the lifeline they so desperately need. The situations dealt with, often of a crisis nature, include domestic violence, marital or family problems, homelessness, emotional difficulties, behavioural issues, substance abuse, gambling and even human trafficking.

From time to time, the helpline itself needs help. Its current crop of 40 volunteers take 16,000 phone calls a year. Volunteers come and go and they need to be trained for over three months before they start taking calls. The agency estimates it needs to nearly double its number of volunteers to 70 and an appeal has gone out for anyone interested in joining the team to make contact.

One way for Appoġġ to do more with its sparse resources would be to deploy new technology to supplement the work done by the traditional phone line. One cannot say that the Maltese are not digitally savvy enough, with the technologies now second nature to the younger generations and also being adopted quite widely by the older ones.

Text messaging, for example, is used copiously in Malta. E-mail is the medium of choice for so much of our communication. Online chat is something that many take for granted in their daily use of it. And “there’s an app for everything”, so why not as a means for people in distress to reach out for help?

While the traditional phone call is likely to remain the preferred option for the safety and confidentiality it provides, the facility to discuss complex problems and just to hear the soothing sound of a human voice at the other end of the line, the newer means of making contact could prove very useful in improving Supportline’s service delivery.

In Britain, a study about three years ago by Helplines Partnership, the umbrella body for organisations that provide helpline services in the UK, found that e-mail and online chat were becoming as important as the telephone among students needing to get in touch. This trend can only grow.

The Maltese government has a decent track record in going digital, now offering many of its services online. Extending this to Supportline 179 would be a natural step to take.

It would not lessen the need for more volunteers, perhaps the opposite. Which is why anyone feeling the need to contribute something to society might want to consider 179 as way of giving a most valuable service.