Three grieving dads in the United Kingdom are walking around the country attempting to raise awareness about teen suicide.

Mike, Andy, and Tim lost their daughters, Beth, Sophie, and Emily, to the UK suicide epidemic. They chose fundraiser walking as a way of challenging the culture and honouring their daughters’ memory.

So far, the suicide-bereaved fellowship of three have raised over £880,000, with the hope of reaching £1,000,000. A number far greater than the humble £9,000 the men had initially intended to raise.

On their website, the trio attributed their success to an unexpectedly high amount of visibility, which, according to UK youth suicide charity PAPYRUS‘ CEO Ged Flynn, “has changed the landscape of suicide awareness.”

In addition to receiving widespread support from across the country, the three dads recently received a Special Recognition award from Britain’s biggest people’s choice award, Pride of Britain.

The accolades for the trio are definitely well-earned.

ITV called the walking fundraiser “remarkable,” adding, the Pride of Britain award for the “vital issue of suicide among young people in the UK was richly deserved.”

Their message is simple: ‘Open and frank conversations save lives.’

Making note of shared sentiments along the way, the Three Dads wrote,

“During our walk we met very many suicide-bereaved parents; all of them said the same thing: it was only after they lost their child that they discovered that suicide was the biggest killer of under 35s in the UK; they all asked, “If suicide is the biggest threat to our children’s lives, why is no one talking about it?”

It’s in this vein that Mike, Andy and Tim are petitioning Parliament to include teen suicide prevention programs in the UK school curriculum.

‘We want suicide spoken about in schools in a safe and age-appropriate way,’ a joint statement from the three dads said.

They added,

‘Speaking about suicide saves lives. The Department for Education are conducting a review of the Relationships, Sex and Health Education curriculum; this petition calls on the DoE to include suicide prevention within the statutory guidelines of the new curriculum.’

In an October 21 response to the men, the UK government stated,

‘Our deepest sympathies are with families of those who have died by suicide, and we need to do everything we can to prevent it. Schools can teach about suicide to older pupils in an age-appropriate way. When we review the RSHE guidance, we will look at whether there is more we need to do to support them to do so safely.’

At the time of writing this article, the grieving trio’s petition has garnered 142,410 signatures, with 22 days still left to run.

This is safely above the 100,000 needed to action a petition for debate by British bureaucrats in Westminster Hall.

In an era of mass fatherlessness and hatred for masculinity, Beth, Sophie and Emily’s grieving dads, Mike, Andy and Tim, exemplify what Baylor University concluded was ‘the masculine style of building closeness.’

As I unpacked last week, dads build bonds with their daughters through a ‘closeness in the doing.’

This suicide-bereaved trio are doing just that, and as such is raising ‘up a crown of beauty instead of ashes.’

In the midst of breathtakingly tragic loss, these amazing dads — and their daughters — are bringing Baylor’s conclusions to life.