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MFI Global Committee activity

• MindFreedom International is a partner in collaboration between WHO MiNDbank and the World Health Organization. MindFreedom was invited to participate in the MiNDbank launch on International Human Rights Day on December 10 2013 in Geneva, Switzerland. WHO MiNDbank is an online platform which brings together a range of country and international resources, covering mental health, disability, general  health, human rights and development.

  MiNDbank features extensive resources for every country (policies, plans, strategies, and legislation), in the areas of mental health, disability, general health, and human rights, along with international and regional treaties. The database will allow the sharing of key policy, strategy and technical documents, and best practices within and across countries thereby facilitating policy development, advocacy and research in each of the key areas. | MORE on the World Health Organization’s MiNDbank->>

  
• April 2011 meeting with Ghana’s Deputy Minister of Health: Hon. Rojo Mettle-Nunoo.
  L to R: Dan Taylor (Secretary, MindFreedom-Ghana), Celia Brown, The Deputy Minister, Amanorbea DoDoo, David Oaks and
  Nii Lartey Addico.

  Resources

  • United Nations COMMITTEE ON THE RIGHTS OF PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES
  • United Nations Enable: Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
  • UN to inspect prisons,psychiatric centres, prayer camps in Ghana
  • MindFreedom International’s Press Page
  • MindFreedom International (MFI) Sponsor & Affiliate List
  • MindFreedom-Ireland
  • New ECT resource for patients, families, advocates, researchers, and providers
  • Visit to MindFreedom-Ghana has many lessons for us all
  • MindFreedom-Ghana on Facebook (see photo of street protest in Ghana)

Previous activities

• In the USA, help us pass the UN disability treaty – Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), click here. 
• In 2011, MindFreedom International sent a delegation to Accra, Ghana in Africa, headed by MFI Board President Celia Brown (photo above), who has made several trips there. The delegation helped to train activists in MindFreedom Ghana. The Open Society Institute of the Soros Foundation funded the project through a Disability Rights Initiative grant. It has been a great opportunity to work with and learn from fellow activists, as well as cross-disability groups. For more information, including pictures, click here.
• MindFreedom received a grant from CMB International to create a much-needed Global Mental Health Empowerment Handbook. It aims to empower psychiatric consumers and survivors to be heard more effectively by their communities, care providers, and policy makers. The manual is due to be launched in December 2013/January 2014.
• The Director of the United Nation’s World Health Organization, mental health department calls MindFreedom’s human rights work “remarkable… fair… transparent.” To read the full statement, click here.
• Psychiatric survivors play a role in United Nations treaty about disability and human rights. Click here to learn more.
• The World Psychiatric Association invited MindFreedom International Director David W. Oaks to be a “special presenter” at their World Congress in Prague. click here.
• For information about an historic dialogue about coercion in the mental health system between MindFreedom International and the World Psychiatric Association, click here.

Background about the MindFreedom Global campaign:

Welcome to the MindFreedom Global Campaign Committee

There are three main priority campaigns you are invited to support:

1. Influence the United Nations for human rights in mental health care.
2. Influence the World Health Organization’s (WHO’s) mental health section.
3. Support the emerging voice of psychiatric survivors in poor and developing countries, including by starting new affiliates.

For an introductory background article about MindFreedom’s Global Campaign click here.

Since 2001, MFI has been the first and so far only group of its kind to have accreditation from the UN as a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) with Consultative Roster Status. MFI has used that status for several years to have a team of psychiatric survivors enter the UN to participate in international negotiating sessions about the human rights of people labeled with disabilities. 

Pictured above is the late poet, author and psychiatric survivor John McCarthyof MindFreedom Ireland, who was part of the MFI team that entered intothe UN to bring up human rights in the mental health system. For more info on John’s legacy click here.

MFI has also reached out to a variety of personnel at WHO. As stated above, Dr. Benedetto Saraceno, who at that time was WHO Director of Mental Health & Substance Dependence, was most helpful. MFI seeks to impact WHO’s policy about human rights and the mental health system. Again, to read about Dr. Saraceno’s statement about MFI, click here.

MindFreedom has also reached out to and met with leaders of the World Psychiatric Association about the need for moderated dialogue between psychiatric survivor and mental health professional organizations. For information on these meetings – including video, photos, statements, news conference and more – click here. Unfortunately, our request for dialogue was not reciprocated.