After a Northern Voice session a few individuals decided to take one conversation to the next level and create Mental Health Camp.
The goal is to address and discuss such questions as:
How can blogging help decrease the stigma of mental health?
How does someone with a mental illness navigate the waters of anonymity in the transparent world of social media?
How is the journaling that happens in blogging similar to or different from journaling for healing?
How can social media participants with mental health issues help each other?
“We strongly hope that the Mental Health Camp model will be replicated in many cities in the world,” said organizer Raul Pacheco. “As one of our speakers said, we aim to squash stigma about mental health one blog and tweet at a time.”
A “Camp” in the social media world is a basically a conference that has a loose schedule where attendees can have a say in which sessions they would like to see take place. Recently it’s also been the term used for a gathering or meeting, organized in the same online / social media sphere. Mental Health Camp was created by Raul Pacheco along with Isabella Mori of Change Therapy – both have also been organizers of the monthly Vancouver Blogger Meetup.
Topics scheduled for discussion include, “Anonymity and pseudonymity: Freedoms, dangers and responsibilities”, “Social Networking, Visibility, and the Therapeutic Alliance”, and “ADHD – Busting the Myths, Breaking the Stigma, Showing Reality, One Post and Tweet at a Time”.
Mental Health Camp will be at WorkSpace in Gastown this Saturday, April 25th, 2009 from 9:00am to 6:00pm. Registration is online.
Having driven across the city all day in a hybrid vehicle I can just imagine how smooth it would be to cruise around in a 100% electric vehicle and amazingly enough over the last few years students at Emily Carr University have come up with some prototype models for just that.
Fuse Studio is announcing a community forum EV.ent for their proposed electric vehicle design on April 24th, 2009. The EV.ent launch is also a public forum to discuss Electric Vehicle design and the construction of a community network for alternative personal transportation options in Vancouver. Since fall 2008, the students of Fuse Studio have been designing and developing a scale model of their region-specific electric vehicle design that will be on display during the EV.ent. [Fuse Studio]
This Friday at Emily Carr there they will reveal the design in order to get community feedback and to fundraise to purchase the chassis for the vehicle.
Where Emily Carr University of Art + Design, in Room 301
When Friday April 24th from 6:00pm to 9:00pm
“The EV.ent launch gives members of our community the opportunity to work creatively and co-design with students on an ecologically friendly project,” said Project Coordinator Stephanie Vacher. If you’re interested in attending just stop on by this Friday or email info [at] howdowegetthere.ca for more information.
I set out to Surrey this morning for a lovely morning stroll with my sister and Jakob along the right of way greenway – a network of trails that practically cross the entire city. We must have run into about 4 different groups of school children out and about for a class walk as well.
I then came back downtown to check out what was going on at the Vancouver Art Gallery. The Green Party is on the Georgia Street side and have speeches, information booths and a band. However, our buddy Paul from Mojave is on the Robson Street side with Liberation BC handing out free vegan cupcakes — which are delicious by the way.
Both groups will be there until 2:00pm so you still have about an hour to stop by.
The ride to and from Surrey in the Camry Hybrid was great and I’ll have a full review once I’m able to sit still for more than 5 minutes today. Time for the next Earth Day event!
Today I’ll be out and about around town using a Camry Hybrid to get around, thanks to @ToyotaCanada. I have a few destinations and I’ll be blogging throughout the day with updates on the events. The first stop on my Earth Day tour of Vancouver today is King George Secondary in the West End.
The high school is participating in Best Buy’s “Tech it Away” event where you can bring in your electronic goods for recycling.
Accepted items include computers, monitors, cables & accessories, laptops, printers, fax machines, TVs, cell phones, batteries, DVD players, and VCRs.
In exchange for these recycling efforts at schools by student volunteers, Best Buy will award grants for the purchase of electronic gear to participating schools (19 in total) in recognition of their environmental efforts.
Participating schools in Vancouver:
Lord Byng Secondary (3939 West 16th Avenue)
King George Secondary (1755 Barclay Street)
Sir Winston Churchill Secondary (7055 Heather Street)
They will be accepting your electronic goods for recycling all day today from 7:00am until 7:00pm.
Our home team is undefeated thus far in the 2009 Stanley Cup playoffs and while they fought hard against a strong young St Louis team, Canucks fans were calling the sweep days ago (and I was hoping no one was going to jinx it).
It’s been an up and down season (and man, were we down – even with a losing streak at home at one point) but we’ve been able to rally thanks to a lot of heart and a phenomenal goalie – making this a great playoff run so far.
We’re still uncertain of our next opponent but until that match up in round two, our boys will get some rest. Check out our latest episode of The Crazy Canucks podcast for more tasty Canucks chit chat.
