WEARING A WHITE surgical mask hiding half her face, a young woman walks into a suicide-prevention centre by the Tojinbo cliffs. She has been crying. Yukio Shige and Misako Kawagoe swing into a practised routine. They greet her at once; Mr Shige lets a shelter know that a guest will be staying for a couple of nights; Ms Kawagoe readies rice pancakes with grated radish—oroshi mochi—a local speciality.

For the past 14 years these two have taken turns from morning to night to patrol Tojinbo—sheer, jagged cliffs near a sleepy Japanese resort, Mikuni. Sometimes, they encounter people who have overdosed on pills before a planned jump. Or they spot people carrying ropes, to hang themselves from the cliffs. Mr Shige and Ms Kawagoe bring potential jumpers back from the edge—640 of them so far. They have helped to reduce the number of suicides at Tojinbo from about 26 a year at the beginning of the century to fewer than ten.

Mr Shige rescued his first potential suicides before he retired from his job as a policeman: an elderly couple whose hotel business had failed, forcing them into debt and to sell their home. Recent encounters include a man who lost his job when his employer discovered he was HIV positive. About 70% of the centre’s visitors are men. Most are driven to contemplate suicide by family or work problems or bullying.

Around the world, volunteer groups such as the Samaritans try to curb suicide by providing a listening ear. Such initiatives help push down suicide rates. But they tend, initially, to receive little or no government support. “Politicians thought that suicide was a personal problem,” says Mr Shige. For the first few years after he left the police, he and Ms Kawagoe paid for the suicide-prevention centre they founded from their own pockets. They even rented apartments as shelters. To make ends meet, Ms Kawagoe would work at the centre in the day, and clean bathtubs in a nearby onsen (hot-spring resort) at night. For her, suicide is a personal pain. Her parents took their own lives when she was a teenager, a grief she did not share with anyone until she was in her 50s.

Suicide is not only a social problem; it is the country’s responsibility, says Mr Shige. He was one of the main lobbyists behind a law passed in 2006, which for the first time made public entities responsible for suicide prevention.

Much is still to be done. In the meantime, Mr Shige guides the desperate from the cliffs. They tried giving them coffee. But, says Mr Shige, it was “too impersonal”. So he helps them re-examine their problems over a traditional, nurturing bowl of mochi. “There’s nothing in this world”, he says, “that can’t be solved.”