Event: Mental Health Camp

What is it: A one-day (un)conference about social media and mental health.

Vancouver's first Mental Health Camp is happening on April 25th, 2009 from 9am to 6pm at WorkSpace in Gastown. This unconference locates itself at the intersection of social media and mental health, with an emphasis on how blogging can help remove the stigma of mental illness.

Mental Health Camp started as a follow up to the wonderful Northern Voice '09 panel "Coping Digitally: Breaking Stigma and Healing Mental Illness Through Blogging and other Social Medi" where Tod, Airdrie and Isabella shared their story. We had a lot of feedback indicating that the conversation needed to be continued, and thus Isabella and I took it upon ourselves to organize the Mental Health Camp.

The unconference now has a dedicated website : http://www.mentalhealthcamp.org

We would seriously appreciate your help in spreading the word. Blog about it, tweet about it, volunteer to participate (there's all sorts of tasks and little things that you can help with - help setting up on the day off, moving around furniture, even just being there, helping with the unconference session wrangling, suggesting topics, all sorts of things).

Please also remember that this is (as usually with any other Camp) a labor of love, and we are doing this on an entirely volunteer basis. We have clearly indicated that the Camp's admission is by donation, but nobody will be turned away for lack of funds.

We hope that Mental Health Camp will provide participants with a safe and comfortable environment to share ideas and discuss ways in which the Internet, blogging and social media can help bring issues of mental health to the forefront to be talked about respectfully and in a collaborative fashion, and to help break down the stigma associated with mental health.