Judi’s Room
Wednesday, April 5, 2023
3m PST
4pm MT
5pm CT
6pm EST
Click HERE to Participate
MindFreedom International and I Love You, Lead On collaborate to bring you Judi’s Room – Celebrate the Life of Sally Zinman (1937-2022) through video clips and remembrances of her peers. You are welcome to come share. Wednesday, April 5, 2023, 3pm PST, 4pm MT, 5pm CT, 6pm EST. Zoom. ASL upon request.
To log into the meeting go HERE. The event is free, donations welcome to help pay for ASL interpretation.
“We, all of us, have been soldiers in a march towards transformation, from a system based on chronicity to one of recovery. From a system that decided everything about us without us, to one in which nothing is about us without us…My feelings as I left my own incarceration…I wanted to do something about it, so that those who followed me would not experience the same inhumane treatment as I had.” These are words excerpted from Sally Zinman’s acceptance speech at the 2016 SAMHSA Voice awards ceremony.
Sally Zinman walks tall among human rights champions and is the subject of this month’s Judi’s Room. She was a pioneer in the mental health peer movement, human rights advocate, originator of the first state-wide mental health peer-run organization in Florida and recipient of the 2016 SAMHS Voice Award. She was instrumental in the development of National Coalition for Alternatives in Mental Health, the California Network of Mental Health Clients, co-editor of Madness Network News recipient of the Mental Health Association’s Clifford W. Beers Award, board member of the Bazelon Center and Editorial Board member for the Psychiatric Rehabilitation Association—just to name a few of her achievements.
Sally was incarcerated in a mental facility when she declared herself not to be Sally Zinman. This simple act was indicative of her strong will and self-determination and the cause of her institutionalization where she suffered great abuses by her care givers. The experience fueled her sense of righteousness and desire to improve the mental system. Like the others we have honored in this series, she recognized the importance, the right and responsibility of people most affected by the system to lead its transformation.
It is for us in who are currently in the Mental Health Peer Movement To appreciate and Sally Zinman and others who had and have the courage to speak up, propose, and make changes that empower people with lived experience to have a voice and make more change both within. As a result her work we have organizations that are operated us as peers of that movement. We have voices, create change, and will continue to do so. Thank You Sally for giving us that power!