“It’s not about pointing the finger at anyone…it’s just about sitting down and having those conversations where you say ‘OK, the reality is…’”explains Redfern Waterloo CDAT Secretary, Charmaine Jones. “You can’t just keep turning your back on it for fear of demonising the people that are caught up in it. You don’t do anyone any favours by demonising Redfern and Waterloo any more than what it has been demonised, but I think there comes a point when you have to say, ‘well this is an issue and this impacts on all of us and lets just talk about it’.”
The Week will see all different agencies coming together and running events about harm reduction. “Harm reduction is about accepting that people will engage in risky behaviours and how you lessen the harm, whether that’s harm at an individual level, a family level or a whole community level”.
Events will be hosted all around the Redfern, Waterloo and Surry Hills area. The City of Sydney will be launching a video on the best way of removing sharps, senior pharmaceutical workshops in Russian and Chinese, and the Sydney University Debating team debating whether drugs should be legal.
These activities will help to explore the impacts that drugs have on our community and hopefully provide people with the knowledge and resources to lessen risky behaviours. It will also highlight the community’s resilience and perseverance in taking care of other people, despite the absence of government funding.
