solidarity in diversity in our mad world
Mad World International Survivor History - Solidarity in multicultural diversity.
solidarity in diversity in our mad world
Sankofa bird The Sankofa bird flies forward while looking backward with an egg in its mouth. The egg symbolises the future.

We must go back and reclaim our past so we can move forward; so we understand why and how we came to be who we are today.

solidarity in diversity in our mad world

About 1705 Ukawsaw Gronniosaw was born a prince in Africa, somewhere near Lake Chad. - But he was a prince with a difference: He was considered foolish or insane.

Sold into slavery, he crossed the Atlantic, and became a domestic slave in New York. Eventually he was granted freedom and crossed the Atlantic again to England

He published A Narrative of the Most Remarkable Particulars In the Life of James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw, An African Prince, As related by Himself.

solidarity in diversity in our mad world

1764 - 1847

Mad Mary Lamb and her brother Charles were Authors of children's stories and poetry that were read throughout the English-speaking world.

solidarity in diversity in our mad world

7.7.1845 Alleged Lunatics Friend Society formed by ex-lunatics and alleged lunatics in London. Amongst those it befriended was Edward L. Peithman, a German confined for approaching Prince Albert. Eventually he was allowed to return to Germany.

solidarity in diversity in our mad world

After a difference of religious opinion, Elizabeth Packard was confined in an Illinois (USA) asylum by her husband

After her release in 1863, she successfully campaigned on women's rights and mental health and civil liberties.

solidarity in diversity in our mad world

Vincent van Gogh born Netherlands 30.3.1853

He set the world alight with his convulsive paintings

Shot himself in France 29.7.1890

solidarity in diversity in our mad world

Clifford Beers

30.3.1876 - 9.7.1943

USA mental patient

Published his autobiography A Mind that Found Itself in 1908.

Beers formed the International Committee for Mental Hygiene in 1919 and this led, eventually, to the present World Federation for Mental Health.

solidarity in diversity in our mad world

1.1.1907 In Germany, August Natterer saw a vision lasting about half an hour and including about 1,000 images. He spent much of his life drawing these images, some of which featured in 1922 in Hans Prinzhorn's Bildnerei der Geisteskranken (Artistry of the Mentally Ill)

solidarity in diversity in our mad world

The Royal Albert Institution for the Feeble-minded of the Northern Counties - Collective action 18.7.1924

This statement is written by a patient and signed by patients. On July 18th 1924 Patient James Ollier reported to the Chief Attendant the bruise of patient William Dugdale on hip (penus) which Dugdale had said Mr Hully had done it with kicking him.

The undersigned patients were present when the Chief Attendant replyed saying he did not believe it. Mr Hully would not do such a thing.

Also informed him to mind his own business.

J. Ollier - J. Holmes - A. Batty - G. Hilton - J. Morris - R. Longmore

solidarity in diversity in our mad world

Spring 1939, a Reich Committee for Scientific Research of Hereditary and Severe Constitutional Diseases was established that oversaw the killing of an estimated 5,000 'deformed' children in a 'euthanasia' programme that finished in November 1944. In July 1939 planning of the 'T4' programme of 'mercy killings' of the insane began

solidarity in diversity in our mad world

In January 1955 Peter Whitehead at Rampton top security hospital in England decided he was wrongfully shut away... Peter advised other patients to

"Write letters. Get people outside interested in you. Tell them you've been wrongly shut away. If you stay quiet, nobody will lift a finger to help you, however long you stay here"

Working through the National Council for Civil Liberties, large numbers of patients, including Peter, won their liberty in the 1950s.

solidarity in diversity in our mad world

1957: Recovery groups, now known as Grow began in Hurstville, Sydney, Australia. Started by former mental patients who met through Alcoholics Anonymous. The organisation started in Ireland in 1969

solidarity in diversity in our mad world

We Shall Overcome started in Norway by mental patients and ex- patients in 1968 continues to represent users and survivors of psychiatry in the 21st century.

solidarity in diversity in our mad world

1970 The first official patiëntenraad (patient council) was formed in the (large) psychiatric hospital at Coudewater (western Netherlands)

solidarity in diversity in our mad world

26.7.1971 "Petition for the Redress of Grievances put forward by the patients in Hartwood Hospital, Shotts Lanarkshire". - "The signatories to the petition are the Foundation and Permanent Members of SUMP" [Scottish Union of Mental Patients]

solidarity in diversity in our mad world

Madness Network News, published in California from 1972 to 1986, and those who travelled the world with it, linked us together.

solidarity in diversity in our mad world

June 1973 A conference at Fresnes, near Paris, brought together groups from France, Spain, Britain and Germany. A future meeting was planned for Holland

solidarity in diversity in our mad world

1978 On Our Own. Patient-Controlled Alternatives to the Mental Health System by Judi Chamberlin (born New York 1944). Judi visited London, Holland and Iceland in 1982 - Her book inspired Mary O'Hagan in New Zealand

solidarity in diversity in our mad world

Canada 1980: "Cabbages of the world unite" - The call that led the world- wide network of what is now called, Disabled People's International.

solidarity in diversity in our mad world

Solidarity poster

October 1982 Frank Bangay's Solidarity Poster: "We cried together last night, but our tears were in solidarity with the sadness in the world, and through our solidarity through our tears we found strength"

solidarity in diversity in our mad world

International user revolution at the World Mental Health Conference held in Brighton, England in July 1985. Patient representatives from the USA, Holland and Denmark were invited as speakers, but the main English group had to set up its stall outside the conference. Outraged, the international users negotiated their English comrades entry into the conference. United, the users took over a section of the conference and produced their own part of the Mental Health Charter.

solidarity in diversity in our mad world

1987 in Auckland, Aotearoa/New Zealand, Psychiatric Survivors ran support groups, drop-ins and accommodation, produced information for survivors and played a role in local mental health politics. It's founder, Mary O'Hagan, went on a world journey in 1990 and Survivors Speak Out in England published her Stopovers on my way home from mars. Reflective journey through the psychiatric survivor movement in the USA, Britain and the Netherlands in 1993

solidarity in diversity in our mad world

1990 "the initiative was taken in the Netherlands to form a network of associations of (former) psychiatric patients from various European countries."

solidarity in diversity in our mad world

The World Network of Users and Survivors of Psychiatry began as the World Federation of Psychiatric Users formed at the World Federation for Mental Health Congress in Mexico City in August 1991. These congresses, held every two years, were a convenient place for users to meet as there were always some attending anyway.

solidarity in diversity in our mad world

Tower Hamlets African and Caribbean Mental Health Organisation (THACMHO), established in 1996, explored the history of the African diaspora in its search for health through history.

solidarity in diversity in our mad world
SIMBA: let the tiger
roar     The tigers and their cubs.

SIMBA (SHARE IN MAUDSELY BLACK ACTION)

dispensed with "transparencies, statistics and charts" when it addressed the Maudsley management in 2000. The group thought it would be "so much more powerful to do it through prose and poetry" - and to take their children

solidarity in diversity in our mad world

Psychiatric Survivors' Archive Toronto (Canada) began meeting regularly in January 2001 - They now have an extensive archive classified as organisational and personal.

solidarity in diversity in our mad world

March 2001 Issue one of aaina - a mental health advocacy newsletter - published in India

solidarity in diversity in our mad world

2003: Crona "Dark One". Gender is just one thing s/he does not know how to deal with.

The international language of Japanese comics explores a madness in everyone.

solidarity in diversity in our mad world

The inaugural meeting of organisations representing users and survivors on the African continent took place in 2005, in Kampala, Uganda with representative from Guinea, Ghana, South Africa, Malawi, Zambia, Tanzania, Rwanda and Uganda. The Pan African Network of Users and Survivors of Psychiatry is now called the Pan African Network of People with Psychosocial Disabilities

solidarity in diversity in our mad world

Oor Mad History 2010

solidarity in diversity in our mad world

Mad Matters 2013 Mad Matters: A Critical Reader in Canadian Mad Studies

solidarity in diversity in our mad world


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Headings

home page

Sankofa bird - Ghana

Ukawsaw Gronniosaw

Mary Lamb

Alleged Lunatics Friend Society

Elizabeth Packard

Vincent van Gogh

Clifford Beers

August Natterer

James Ollier

Remembrance

Recovery - Australia and Ireland

Peter Whitehead

We Shall Overcome - Norway

Coudewater - Holland

Scottish Union of Mental Patients

Madness Network News USA

Fresnes - France

Judi Chamberlin

Cabbages of the world unite

Solidarity poster

Brighton: International user revolution

Aotearoa - New Zealand

European network

World Network - Mexico

African and Caribbean

SIMBA

Toronto archive Canada

aaina: India

Crona - Japan

Pan Africa

Oor Mad History

Canadian Mad Studies