DARLINGTON: The fundraising event held by the South Sydney Herald on Friday October 18 in Darlington saw 45 guests gather at The Settlement Neighbourhood Centre to share a meal and listen to live music as well as a talk about mental health by Dr Anthony Harris, president of the Schizophrenia Fellowship NSW.
[portfolio_slideshow]
Guests enjoyed a three-course vegetarian dinner catered by Simon Doring from local eatery, Cafe Simple, while being entertained with beautiful songs by folk musicians/singers Salta. The choir, I Cantarini, accompanied by a theorbo (a sort of lute), performed later in the evening with classical pieces from 17th-century Italy.
Andrew Collis, managing editor of the SSH, opened the evening with a speech highlighting the purpose of the newspaper, which is not only to inform, but to affirm cultural priorities of Aboriginal locals and their leaders, raise the profile of community and welfare groups, maintain a diversity of opinions and perspectives in the public domain, celebrate the possibilities of social and ecological justice and insist that “speaking up, speaking out, challenging injustice and fighting for equality are possible”.
A highlight of the evening was the talk given by Anthony Harris. Last month, in view of Mental Health Month, Dr Harris spoke to SSH writer Laura Buzo about the heartbreak and frustrations experienced by people suffering from mental illness, and also by their families, their carers and health professionals.
“The Fellowship was born out of a bunch of angry people, sitting in a hall saying, this isn’t good enough,” Dr Harris explained. From a small committed group to a statewide organisation with over 260 staff, the Fellowship has now been “agitating” for over 25 years, by raising awareness around mental health issues and advocating for sufferers and carers.
For example, the Fellowship helps people get their first job or get back into the workforce, follows up and supports them as much as possible. It also provides training courses to learn how to deal with people with mental illness, and a successful example was the training in 2008 of a mental health intervention team within the state police service, which was therefore better equipped with the skills to help their colleagues in difficult or frightening situations.
Dr Harris said that even though hospital units provided a reasonable level of care, the problem for people with mental illness was the follow-up care: “Mental health care is not something that just happens in hospitals, it happens in communities,” he said.
In his opinion, teams of workers need to be out in the communities to provide the services that are needed for people “to improve their skills and live a good life, a life connected to people, in which they have somebody to talk to, which isn’t just their parents, and where they have a role”. Indeed, the way most people define themselves reflects the people they love (spouse, parent …) and the things that they do (job, hobby). But for the people suffering from mental illness and isolation, those core elements of identity have often been removed, and this marginalises them even more.
Dr Harris cited a survey done a few years ago, in which it was found that people living with serious mental illness were also very unhealthy, with 45 per cent being obese and a lot of them smoking. Their life expectancy was 10-20 years less than the community average.
That is why the Fellowship also promotes physical activity: “We are trying to get people off their backside and walking,” he said. In order to raise awareness about the importance of physical and mental health, people are invited to participate in a Wellness Walk taking place on November 16 in Sydney, across the Harbour Bridge, to help raise funds for the Schizophrenia Fellowship NSW.
He concluded the talk by encouraging the audience to continue to speak out and get involved: “Please make a nuisance of yourselves and agitate for mental health.”
