WORLD HEARING VOICES DAY - Australia

Richmond Fellowship WA

Mail: PO Box 682. Bentley, WA 6982
Tel: 00 61 (08) 9258 3060 Email: trf@rfwa.org.au
For further information go here

World Hearing Voices Day 2007

Afternoon Coffeehouse ‘SpeakEasy’ ‘Hear our Voices’

Friday 14 September 2007 1.30 – 3.30 at Heathcote, Applecross Centre for Adult Education, Main Hall, Kitchen Building.

Re-inventing the meaning of the ‘Speak Easy’, the Hearing Voices Network Australia seeks to encourage the sharing of many voices to ‘speak out with ease’ at an afternoon coffee-house style gathering as a part of the annual worldwide initiative of hearing Voices Networks around the globe to celebrate World Hearing Voices Day. Raise awareness with us as we provide a space to hear many voices of mental health consumers, allies and friends who will gather to listen, perform and share their voice.

This international awareness day helps combat the secrecy and stigma surrounding hearing voices and aims to celebrate voice hearing as part of the diversity of human experience and raise awareness of the fact that hearing voices, in and of itself, is not a sign of mental illness — indeed many people hear voices, such as painters, author’s spiritual mediums and others are sought after, for their voice hearing capabilities.

Each year Hearing Voices Networks and Groups worldwide mark the occasion with an activity or event to:

• Raise awareness of the phenomenon of hearing voices
• Challenge negative attitudes towards people who hear voices
• Challenge incorrect assumptions about voice hearing as a sign of an illness,
• Raise awareness of the issues of stigma and discrimination faced by people diagnosed with a mental illness, and
• Give voice to the call for dignity, liberty and self determination

WORLD HEARING VOICES DAY Perth WA

Friday 14 September 2007 1.30 – 3.30 at Heathcote, Centre for Adult Education, Main Hall, Kitchen Building.

BACKGROUND

The Afternoon Coffeehouse ‘SpeakEasy’ theme is in the spirit of Jack Kerouac's Beat Generation, bohemian coffeehouse gatherings of politically minded ‘outsider artists’ which developed first among a small group of friends in the 1940’s, and gained force and popularity in the 1950’s. Jack Kerouac (apparently diagnosed with a schizoid personality) was considered a leader of the Beat Movement. The beat movement was a reaction to society by a generation that wanted to move beyond the notion that they were without options and without hope. Jack Kerouac’s 1948 notion of the ‘Beat Generation’, was used to change the existing meaning of beat as "tired" or "down and out," to mean upbeat, beatific. So too, the Hearing Voices Network Australia chose this ‘Beat Gen’ theme because of its association with the search for identity and hope for the future, railing against the commonplace versions of people diagnosed with a mental illness, depicting them as down and out and down-beat. Instead we want to celebrate the diversity and creativity of people diagnosed as mentally ill and create a new hope for the future of acceptance and respect.

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To Register to attend or to perform at the Coffeehouse SpeakEasy contact:
The Hearing Voices Network Australia
Auspised by Richmond Fellowship WA
Call: 00 61 (08) 9258 3090
Mail to: RFWA, PO Box 682, Bentley WA, 6982
Fax registration form to 00 61 (08) 9258 3090 Or Email to trf@rfwa.org.au
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FURTHER ENQUIRIES: Marlene 00 +61 (08) 9258 3060, Marlene@rfwa.org.au

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