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Mad Pride Ghana 2007

For a second year in a row, MindFreedom Ghana holds by far the largest Mad Pride event! Here's the report directly from Dan at MindFreedom Ghana in Accra.

Dan Taylor is secretary from MindFreedom Ghana in Accra.

The Mad Pride March in Accra went on very smoothly and successfully last Friday, 13 July 2007. It was an event that has been the talk of town since it was organized. Our theme for Mad Pride Event 07 is "Fighting Stigma In Mental Illness -- Join In The Fight"

The march started at about 0930 GMT with 260 people in attendance. The weather was quite warm and bright. These comprised our members, members of sister organizations, mental health professionals and some members of the general public. We printed and distributed T shirts and caps freely to the marchers for use.

Among the marchers some carried placards some of which read "5 + 15 = 18 = stigmatization , Have you hugged a mentally ill person today? Who are U to judge mentally ill person? Stigmatization is cruel and evil"

There was music being played in the background from a music machine which saw the marchers dancing into a frenzy. We printed 3,000 flyers that were distributed to people along the way. This apparently made some of them to join us amid fun and excitement. Some wore weird and fanciful clothing and made gestures to people along the way.

At 12noon, we made a stop over at the Minister of Health's offices to present a petition(I'll make available copy of the petition later) to the Minster on our grievances with the mental health delivery services in Ghana.

From there we converged at the Independence Square where we organized a music and cultural festival with solidarity speeches by some users and advocacy groups. I must tell you that it was all fun and merry making all aimed at making people realise that our brothers and sisters with mental disorders in our communities and psychiatric hospitals deserve love, good care and reintegration by all.

We ended the show around 1430GMT with about 430 people all visibly satisfied with the cause we've committed ourselves to.

I'll in due course send you some photos taken and probably the video recording made.

Many thanks for solidarizing with us for Mad Pride 07

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Leah Harris

Leah Harris, a second generation psychiatric survivor, discovered MindFreedom in 2000 when she was 25 years old. Her first act in the mad movement was to tell her story of oppression and resistance, and to help edit stories for MindFreedom's Oral History Project. Since then, she has been working in various ways to help achieve the vision of MindFreedom: an end to all forms of psychiatric oppression, healing of all forms of "normality," and the creation of vibrant, colorful communities that honor and celebrate diversity, difference, and the full range of human experience.

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