Surprise, Surprise
Are you surprised by the latest Vancouver Police Report on Mental Illness? Many of you are blogging about noticing the rising numbers of homeless on your streets. Connect the dots, and this is one of the main reasons why.
The Vancouver Sun says of the Report "It's graphic stuff. More than a dry recounting of systemic failures, the report incorporates horrific stories of the mentally ill who have fallen through the cracks -- the hardest to house, the violently schizophrenic, the addicted. The stories of people living in human filth, or of being driven to suicide, are not for the tender-hearted.The report, the first of its kind in Canada, found that more than 30 per cent of police service calls city-wide involved the mentally ill, with that number approaching 50 per cent in some neighbourhoods."
You would have to be nuts to think that there is any humor in this grim situation. We think there is. Stand Up For Mental Health has already started its annual comedy workshops with new students and alumni. Some of these students live in the Downtown East Side, some may be your family-members,neighbors or co-workers. All of them have a mental illness. All of them have felt marginalized, ostracized, hopeless at some point.
Stand Up For Mental Health workshops teach these students to create and write original comedy material about their mental illness. They go on to learn how to perform the material in front of live audiences. This is a daunting prospect for "normal" people. For these students, it is extraordinary. By the time they are finished the program, they will be empowered, engaged and changed. They will have started an important discussion about Mental Illness. They want to make you part of the dialogue too.
We are having our first Fundraising Performance of 2008 on Sunday April 13, 7pm. at the Granville Island Stage. Support us by coming out. Come laugh your Head Off! Feeling squeamish? I did before seeing Stand Up For Mental Health the first time. This is some of the best stand up comedy out there.
We are changing hearts and minds one laugh at time. Visit our website www.standupformentalhealth.com to buy a ticket and learn more about us.
Comments
Hey Daddeo, Your two
Hey Daddeo,
Your two cents are worth more than any pay raise.
Many of us are in the trenches here at home, every single day. I sleep in my flak jacket and helmet.We are trying to make sure that government and others CANNOT turn a blind eye to the reality that is life here in Vancouver for so many people with mental illness. Our guns and ammunition are humor (very cost-effective).
Please check out the latest post, it explains who we are and what we do. Keep up the good fight,
pat
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Your two cents are worth
Your two cents are worth more than any pay raise.
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It's nice to see these kind
It's nice to see these kind of things happen. It's empowering to know there are people out there that are on the look out for those, many of us have either forgotten about or just disregarded. Now if only our government would do more than simply turn a blind eye as they did when the close the insitutions and care facilities that many of these people had come to rely on.
If the government took the raises they just gave themselves and put it into mental health care, then we might see some positive change. But then that would be asking a lot since they seem to care more about a war in another contry than the war we have here at home.
just my two cents.