LA Cooper is already making great strides helping coordinate the next UK MillionsMissing protests (plural) and I'm helping out a bit, but we desperately need more volunteers. Can you organise an event (of any size) at a key location near you? Oxford, Bristol, Cambridge, Belfast, Edinburgh, Cardiff, Birmingham, Newcastle, Manchester? Can you help with any of the following: writing press releases, transporting shoes/banners, writing copy for the protest handouts, creating banner/poster slogans, organising printing of t-shirts and shipping to the protest locations, identifying and considering, protest locations, ascertaining the law/rules about protests at the specific locations, writing to MPs before/after the event, posting/tweeting live during the protest (to disseminate photos from the event), refining our key messages, encouraging healthy allies to attend, asking celebs to share our messages/photos, manning social media accounts, taking/editing event photos/video, finding and asking notable folk to speak at the protests, etc etc. The goals of the protests are to embarrass and apply pressure to those letting patients down and to get our message across through the press (that we are far sicker than people realise, and the research funding is utterly inadequate).
Obviously patients can't do much individually, but if we each take on a little piece it all adds up quickly, and there's lots that can be done remotely, without attending the actual protest. I didn't make the May protest in London but did help from home, and family went to the protest on my behalf.
I've been sick for seventeen years and I'm not prepared to tolerate this indefensible state of affairs where we are abused and lives destroyed by careerist "researchers" who give us the finger every time they release one of their ridiculous flawed "studies". It's not science, it's funding lobbying. But to bring about change we have to figure out how to work together in the UK and abroad and make it happen, within our limitations. So the (big) challenge is to work out how we can join hands and mobilise further en-masse to effect change, and that probably means very large numbers of us taking a mouse-bite each, and bringing in healthy allies. So PLEASE consider what you can do, and offer your help.
MEAction Network UK (led by LA Cooper) is coordinating but needs a lot of help. This is not just about one protest, but about building a network of volunteers (patients and healthies), tools and resources to assertively lobby and grow stronger, so work done for this protest will be used as a foundation for the next one, and the next one, and the next one, until the politicians start to listen - each time we learn how to do it better. We also need to be ready to make use of incoming resources like some research ongoing and Jen Brea's TED talk which will help get the message out.
Please get in touch through....
https://www.facebook.com/MEActNetUK/
http://www.twitter.com/meactnetuk
