|
|
|
|
Slide 17
|
Here
you see an ex-patient participant at one of our rallies. He is weeping
and holding on to a crucifix. This work is hard but offers many
a chance to heal as well. |
Slide 18
|
The
Boston Sunday Globe carried this headline about our work. Our work
has also been featured on National Public Radio, WBZ radio, Channel
5 Investigative Reports, New England Cable News, Chronicle News
Magazine, and Channel 7 TV news. Our work has also been covered
in the magazine, US News and World Reports, as well as the Salem
Evening News, the Danvers Herald, The Lowell Sun, and the Lawrence
Eagle Tribune. All of this press coverage helps to create a new
image of ex-patients as community leaders instead of "dangerous,
violent mental patients". |
Slide 19
|
By
the summer of 2000 we had successfully advocated for the state to
put $44,000 toward the clearing of the two cemeteries and their
upkeep for a three year period. Here is the smaller of the two cemeteries
that has been cleared. We now have a bill (S.1530) in Senate Ways
and Means to establish a statewide committee to oversee all cemeteries
on all state properties - prisons, state schools, public health
hospitals and state mental institutions. The cost of maintaining
the cemeteries would be covered by .5% of the sale of state lands
going toward the statewide committee. |
Slide 20
|
Here
are members of the Danvers State Memorial Committee in the larger
of the two cemeteries at Danvers State Hospital in the spring of
2001. See the joy on our faces! We had planted flowers earlier in
the fall and they had survived the winter to bloom in the spring.
This was a sign of renewal for us. We have worked hard to research
the names of those buried and to match those names with numbers.
By the late spring of 2002 we anticipate that we will have individual
markers with names to replace over 350 numbered markers. We will
have a wall of remembrance listing all of the remaining names that
we cannot match to numbered markers. Through fundraising we hope
to purchase benches, shrubs and perennials. Victory is close at
hand! |
|
