Freedom Center organizing meetings are at the Quaker Space 43 Center St., second floor, side entrance, Northampton -- twice monthly. Second and Fourth Tuesday at 7:30. Email Freedom Center for more info, freedomcenterinfo(at)gmail.com .

Freedom Center is going strong!

After more than 9 years of fast-paced activism focus, Freedom Center is going strong -- and evolving. We're concentrating on our community support and wellness programs these days: support groups, yoga, writing, and acupuncture. We're also continuing to co-sponsor Madness Radio and we collaborate with the Recovery Learning Community and the Statewide Harm Reduction Coalition.

Join us for a tantalizing Spa Night! On Friday January 21st from 530-830pm at the Quaker Friends Meeting House on 43 Center St. in Northampton is an opportunity for you to come relax while also supporting social justice work.

Spa night is an opportunity for YOU to get a relaxing and affordable massage, acupuncture treatment, craniosacral treatment, shamanic reading, and more! Tickets start at just $5 and an unlimited pass to get as many treatments as you want cost %50.

MEMORIAL-- Tuesday Dec 28 at 2 pm in Williamstown at the First Congregational Church, in the chapel downstairs

Watch the video Dave's sister Mecca made here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=mB_I0WwsYG8

Freedom Center celebrates our memories of Dave Burns, one of the original Freedom Center organizers. Dave's activism led to important reforms in the Northampton area mental health system by exposing and denouncing abuses and pressing for improved treatment. He was a key organizer in local group homes and among mental health consumers in Northampton, who he met on the streets and in low income residences. Dave was also an important link to the past, because he lived in RD Laing's therapeutic communities in London. He was a great guy and his spirit is very much alive in the work of the Freedom Center.

 

 

 

Listen to a great interview with Dave here.

 

Recovery Learning Community is sponsoring a "Starting Hearing Voices Groups" training with Oryx Cohen, Gail Hornstein, Ron Coleman (UK Hearing Voices Network) and Paul Baker (UK Hearing Voices Network). This is a great opportunity to learn about how to create a hearing voices group in your area and become a hearing voices group facilitator.

Dates for the training are November 12th & 19th and December 3rd & 10th. Download the training application here. For more info, contact Oryx Cohen Recovery Learning Community 187 High St., Suite 303 Holyoke, MA 01040 Fax: 413-536-5466 (attn: Oryx) Email: oryx@westernmassrlc.org

Thank you Judi Chamberlin for all your inspiration, your years of friendship and support for Freedom Center, and the inspiration you have given the survivor movement.

Judi passed away. She recently wrote:

I don't believe in an afterlife; I think when I die it will just be a return to the same nothingness as before my birth. I believe that the only 'afterlife' is the way one lives on in people's memories, and it has been so gratifying to me to hear from so many people who appreciate the work I've done and the positive effect I've had on their lives. So I feel confident that I will live on in the memories of many, many people, and that thought gives me great comfort.

http://www.freedom-center.org/we-love-you-judi-chamberlin

http://knowledgeisnecessity.blogspot.com/2010/01/judi-chamerlin-requiem-for-hero.html

Yet again, the city of northampton has recognized the valuable services that Freedom Center has provided and has given the Freedom Center additional funding to keep our programs going. The city of Northampton awarded the Freedom Center $2,500 towards helping to maintain our weekly writing group, acupuncture clinic, yoga classes, and support group. All of these programs take place in Northampton and are free and open to the public and therefore provide lots of benefit to northampton residents.

 

 

 

 

 

Longtime organizer Lee Hurter wrote her Hampshire College thesis on Freedom Center, including interviews with several Freedom Center organizers. Download and read the thesis at the link below.

The prestigious federal National Council on Disability report Inclusive Livable Communities for People with Psychiatric Disabilities March 17, 2008 included a section on Freedom Center that interviews Oryx!

The report says The Freedom Center in Northampton, Massachusetts, is an example of a grassroots, independent program run by psychiatric survivors that receives only minimal funding, yet has developed a number of alternative programs to assist people to achieve their self-determined goals. The Freedom Center offers innovative approaches such as yoga classes and acupuncture, provides peer-run programs, helps people to find housing, and advocates for a noncoercive mental health system in which people are free to make their own choices about the kinds of treatment they want.

Read the entire report here.

In celebration of Freedom Center's seventh anniversary Oryx and Kristen had a baby girl! Katiya Elizabeth Cohen... Congratulatons to the happy couple and the adorable new Freedom Center member.