Theme of the Congress was "East Meets West: Impact of Culture on Mental Health

CONSUMER / USER COMMITMENT TO WFMH

WFMH CONGRESS, HONG KONG 23 AUGUST 2007

Presented on behalf of Consumer, User, Survivor attendees of this Congress

by Janet Meagher (Australia), Orpheus Chi-shing Wong (Hong Kong) and Ken Udagawa(Japan).

SPEAKERS NOTES

Thank you for this brief opportunity to address this gathering.

A number consumers present at this Congress have met to respectfully offer you these thoughts regarding the roles of consumers in future programs of World Federation for Mental Health

• How can consumers such as ourselves, best work with professionals and others in the World Federation for Mental Health to model best recovery focused practices and support you to enable the consumer voice be heard worldwide?

• A few suggestions were ….

We support WFMH to encourage and enable the collective professionalism and lived experience of consumers / users to be acknowledged as a resource of WFMH to disseminate their and our message.

What we bring is the embodiment and the face of what mental health activity and advocacy is all about, we are the representation of what we are all advocating for. Without us you have no role. Like all in the sector we want to see consumers living their hopes and dreams in every region of the world. Together we can make this a reality. The key is action. Mutual action.

Recovery is possible. Please join with us in saying this statement

“Recovery is possible.”

Thank You