Human Connection Can Change the Direction of People's Lives

Holding Hope Connects is pleased to host Guest Speaker, Guy Felicella. Guy is passionate about advocating for the vulnerable people who still suffer in addiction and educating communities on harm reduction to eliminate the stigma that exists around it. Currently Guy works for Vancouver Coastal Health, Ministry of Mental Health and Addiction and the BC Centre on Substance Use. In addition, Guy attends various school districts and post secondary institutions to educate students on addiction.

Guy spent nearly his entire life suffering in addiction and now he is using his experience to change the hearts and minds of people to the idea that recovery is harm reduction and harm reduction is recovery. Gone are the days where it’s either harm reduction or recovery; it’s both!

Join this informative webinar with Guy and hear accounts from someone who has walked through it and what your community can do to change it.

REGISTRATION DETAILS

Date: Saturday, January 8th, 2021.

Time: 10:00 - 12 pm MST (please note to click on the time zone to update to the correct time for your area when you register)

Cost: free

*please click on the registration button below to receive confirmation of your attendance to this zoom format event.

Drug War Armistice Day in Alberta

Drug War Armistice Day Community Outreach in #YEG

People who use substances deserve peace, autonomy, and safety. 

Today, community leaders, families, people with lived and living experience and health care providers will unite in Edmonton in solidarity with community members. Their message is clear: the War on Drugs is a war on people and we must do more to value and protect the lives of people who use substances.

Overdose and poisoning deaths have steadily increased as the illegal drug supply becomes more toxic and unpredictable. Our prohibitionist drug laws are rooted in racism and colonialism and continue to amplify suffering. Harm reduction services are proven to save lives, yet they have been closed, cancelled and criticized under the current provincial government. 

To create a safe haven for members of the inner city community, volunteers will be on hand to provide warm clothes, drinks, and food for attendees on the  northside of 106 Avenue between 96 and 95 Street NW.

Experienced volunteers will be on standby to respond to overdoses/poisonings and promote safety. Overdose response training will be provided, and naloxone distributed. Following the event, local outreach teams will spread out across neighbourhoods most impacted to provide safer use supplies and distribute naloxone.

While the volunteers at today’s event come from varied backgrounds, they have all lost loved ones to drug poisoning. The toll this crisis is taking on those who work on the front lines and on people who use substances is immeasurable. Countless Albertans continue to lose loved ones to toxic policy.  

"In light of the reality on the ground, It is absolutely necessary for us as Community Outreach groups to come together to support the community to collaborate and provide support for people affected by this poisoning crisis to help keep people safer and healthier, but most importantly alive!" Shanell Twan, CAPUD

People who engage with today’s Drug War Armistice event will take away the following:

More than 2,000 Albertans have died from drug overdose/poisoning in 2020-21 

• Four to five Albertans die every day from drug overdose/poisoning 

• Misinformation about harm reduction services is deadly for the community 

• Drug overdoses/poisonings are claiming the lives of people who are loved and valued

• Each death creates ripples of trauma throughout our communities 

• Urgent responses are needed from all levels of government 

• People with lived and living experience should be centered in decision-making 

By adopting a robust community response including outreach, harm reduction, and advocacy, we can end the drug overdose and poisoning claiming far too many of our neighbours.

This is a joint initiative by the following organizations

• AAWEAR

• Bear Clan

• Boots on Ground Harm Reduction Society

• Canadian Association of People Who Use Drugs (CAPUD)

• EACH&EVERY Businesses for Harm Reduction 

• Moms Stop The Harm

• Water Warriors

DRUG USERS LIBERATION FRONT OF BC

Please join Moms Stop the Harm as we host a webinar with guest speaker, Jeremy Kalicum, an addictions researcher and former drug checker with the B.C. Centre on Substance Use. Jeremy leads the Drug Users Liberation Front of BC (DULF).

DULF is an organization which works to ensure a future in which a safe supply of currently illicit and dangerous substances are made available to people who need them.

DULF formed in response to the record high rates of overdose deaths due to a poisoned drug supply. DULF partners with advocacy groups such as Vancouver Network of Drug Users (VANDU), Pivot Legal Society, Moms Stop the Harm (MSTH), and others.

Jeremy will provide an overview of DULF, a peer led model of support, often referred to as compassion clubs or co-ops, that would help get a safe supply of drugs to individuals at high risk of overdose.

“The “safe supply” movement seeks to counter this deadly progression by ensuring the integrity of the dosages that users have been conditioned to crave while providing care that keeps them alive and could wean them off drugs. “It’s not who we are to stand passively by,” says Kalicum. “We’re gonna do something, and we’re willing to take on personal risks to do that. But we can look at ourselves in the mirror and know that we’re doing what’s right.” (Time Magazine, Paul Moakley)

The BC Centre on Substance use recommended that the Compassion Club model of support be implemented in 2019 and many advocates including MSTH are now pushing for this life saving model of support as one strong pathway to stop the deaths.

Webinar Date: Monday, November 22, 2021

Time: 12:00 pm - 1:30 pm

Registration: Please click the button below to register for this free virtual presentation.

THE FUNDAMENTALS OF SAFE SUPPLY

Corey Ranger is the Clinical Nurse Lead for AIDS Vancouver Island and SOLID's safe supply project, the Victoria SAFER Initiative. He is also the President of the Harm Reduction Nurses Association and a board member for the HIV Legal Network. Corey is passionate about pragmatic public policy and ending the racist, colonial War on Drugs in the lands commonly referred to as Canada.

Corey Ranger will be presenting information on the fundamentals of safe supply, its roots in harm reduction and the liberation of people who use drugs, and the dire need to develop de-medicalized and lower barrier models for the provision of a safe supply. Corey will finish the presentation by discussing the Victoria SAFER Initiative, a flexible, harm reduction model for safe supply.

Moms Stop the Harm along with researchers, health care professionals, policy makers and politicians, continues to advocate that a “safe supply” of drugs is urgently needed to address the toxic illicit drug supply. Providing a legal and regulated supply of drugs has the potential to support people who use drugs to stay alive and to live safe and healthy lives.

Please join Corey Ranger as he explains what “safe supply” means, and shares information about the Safer Initiative in Victoria BC.

REGISTRATION DETAILS

Date: Thursday, November 25, 2021

Time: 5 pm - 7pm MDT time (please note to click on time zone to update to the correct time for your area when you register)

Cost: free

*Please click on the registration button below to receive confirmation of your attendance to this zoom format event.

Holding Hope Connects - Learning Series

Holding Hope Connects is a learning series provided by our Stronger Together program and open to all Moms Stop the Harm members as well as the general public.

Please join Moms Stop The Harm to hear David Poses, author of The Weight of Air: A Story of the Lies about Addiction and the Truth about Recovery as he speaks about his personal journey.

“In his groundbreaking memoir, The Weight of Air, David chronicles his struggle to overcome mental illness and addiction. By age nineteen, he’d been through medical detox, inpatient rehab, twelve-step programs, and a halfway house. He saw his drug use as a symptom of depression, but the experts insisted that addiction was the problem. Over the next thirteen years, he went from one relapse to the next, drowning in guilt, shame, and secrets, until he finally found an evidence-based treatment that not only saved his life but helped him thrive.” (goodreads.com)

"David Poses shares his life story and his struggles with rare, raw honesty. . . . This book will help readers better understand why people use substances and the urgency to reframe our responses and thinking."--Petra Schulz, co-founder of Moms Stop the Harm (Amazon, Editorial Reviews).

Date: Saturday, September 18, 2021

Time: 9:30 - 11:00 am * Pacific Standard Time

Format: ZOOM (register using the link below)

---