Festival of Life and Death

Emergent redesign of suicide prevention

Thrive East Midlands

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Establishing ‘Thrive East Midlands’

With others we’re now establishing ‘Thrive East Midlands’ as a sister initiative to London’s ThriveLDN, and Thrive West Midlands.

This will enable a bigger ‘Thrive Midlands’ joining up and collaborations, network, sharing, etc., between East and West Midlands.

FoLaD is initiating and helping establish Thrive East Mids, and then would be a member of Thrive East Mids.

Leadership, team, constitution will emerge for Thrive East Mids completely openly and inclusively. Initial aims are simply getting started. FoLaD can fill gaps where required.

If you are  interested individually, or from any sort of organisation or group, you’re very welcome to be part of it and help shape it.

‘Thrive’ is a highly adaptable, completely inclusive, over-arching concept, within which all groups, agencies, charities, activists, campaigners, artists, social enterprises, etc., working towards improving health, society, and especially mental health, can join, share research and best practice, collaborate, and make good things happen. There is also a Thrive New York City.

The separate authorities/services/initiatives/potential in the East Midlands offer enormous opportunities to join/share/collaborate across the region, to enable the sort of fabulous transformational progress happening via Thrive London and Thrive W Mids, and Thrive NYC. The extraordinary brilliant and beautifully diverse qualities/people of the UK’s East Midlands (and Midlands as a whole) give truly vast potential for connecting, joining and innovating very powerfully indeed. And so Thrive Midlands will be even more amazing.

If you are interested please contact Alan Chapman: ac@alanchapman.com – or via the FoLaD website contact page.

In due course we’ll arrange a venue for an open meeting.

Please share this with anyone wanting to be part of Leicester/Midlands health/societal/wellbeing transformations, and definitely also beyond Leicester to other change-makers, particularly in the East Midlands. Everyone is welcome.

Love and thanks to all.
Alan Chapman

For info:
https://www.thriveldn.co.uk/
https://www.wmca.org.uk/media/1420/wmca-mental-health-commission-thrive-full-doc.pdf
https://festivaloflifeanddeath.org
https://thrivenyc.cityofnewyork.us/

Incidentally and additionally:

Festival of Life and Death (FoLaD) Leicester, the founding hub, is now ready to assemble its own more formalised team and agree a suitable constitution to take FoLaD forward for Leicester City/County/Rutland. The FoLaD model is based in separate city/town/county FoLaDs being autonomous, hence now assembling a team/constitution for Leicester/shire FoLaD. Anyone who is interested, individually, or from any sort of organisation or group, is welcome to be involved.  If you are interested contact Alan Chapman: ac@alanchapman.com – or via the FoLaD website contact page.

FoLaD initial report now available

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It’s a while since the Festival of Life and Death events happened on/around weekend of 8th September 2018.

The recovery from the emotional/energy investment is quite a big factor; besides which the many people who’ve helped make FoLaD happen to date are very busy doing their own day-jobs, which are typically very intense and demanding anyway.

And so the first report has taken a while, and might yet be edited/augmented a bit.

Meanwhile if you’d like a copy of the report as it stands please email and ask for one and we’ll send it to you.

Thanks to everyone who helped and participated, and engaged/supported via social media, etc.

What we’ve all achieved so far in such a short time is extraordinary, and is a very significant platform for substantial growth/innovation, increasing connections, and dramatic effects for the coming year, and beyond.

Enjoy the year-end festivities and new year.  Thanks and love to all.

Emma Fay’s “Un Dia” at FoLaD Haymarket Theatre 8th Sept

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The extraordinary artist Emma Fay brings her Enter Edem theatre company‘s Un Dia experience to Leicester’s Festival of Life and Death event at Haymarket Theatre on 8th September 2018.

Emma uses radically beautiful art and theatre to educate and change minds about challenges of modern times – to improve life and humanity, health, environment, etc.

Un Dia will be performed within the Studio Theatre, next to the main Hobgoblin Foyer stage area, featuring performers and speakers including David Parkin, Daryl Kirkland, Refuge, and Freddie Ferrier.

The Un Dia experience will be continuous so that visitors can join/leave any time during the 2-5pm FoLaD event.

Enter Edem on YouTube

The Festival of Life and Death is a global movement for suicide education and prevention. The Haymarket Theatre FoLaD is the founding event. Emma Fay’s Un Dia is a wonderful addition to activities.

Thank you Emma and team.

The Festival of Life and Death and Un Dia are free to attend.

Emma explains:

“We would like to bring a flavour of ‘Un Dia’ to FoLaD, our next show in development that is exploring the idea of what happens to us all ‘One Day.’ Following the relationship shared between a Grandpa and his Grandson, questions about life and death are revealed and discussed in this heart warming story.”

“We would like to create a memory jar and giant Kite in a celebration of Life that the audience can contribute to throughout the workshop. Taking away a paper chrysanthemums as keep sakes of the experience, the attendees will be adding to our story with their first hand human experiences, based on prompted questions about relationships, time and impermanence, which will fuel our devising process and ultimately add to the authenticity of ‘Un dia’. ”

“Un dia focusses on ideas of presentism and intergenerational relationships, our characters will explore modern distractions that interrupt our living in the present through the themes of destruction, avoidance and isolation. By looking at contemporary ways of spending time, we seek to initiate a better appreciation of the here and now. The workshop will be lead by prompted cards which have questions for attendees to answer through their own accounts based on value, celebrating life and how we spend our time.”

Emma Fay:

Enter Edem website

About Emma Fay/Emma’s art website

Emma Fay on Wikipedia

Emma’s remarkable work has featured in campaigns for Macmillan Cancer Support, PETA, UN-Water, Born Free Foundation, Rethinkyourmind and World Toilet Day, and UK Shark Week featuring body art ‘models’ Tom Daley, Joss Stone, and members of the 2016 British Summer Olympics team.

 

 

 

 

 

You’ve Got A Friend – Suicide Awareness/Prevention Day 9th Sept 2018 Donington le Heath, Coalville, Leics

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An afternoon You’ve got a Friend festival  – 1-5pm 9th Sept – of great music, people, surroundings, with wellness and suicide prevention information/stalls.

Hosted at Leicestershire County Council’s 1620’s House and Garden, Doningon le Heath Coalville, Leics.

Thank you all at #YGAF for supporting The Festival of Life and Death.

Please support the wonderful You’ve got A Friend organization (ygafleicestershire.co.uk)

BBC2 TV Horizon Male Suicide Documentary 22 Aug 2018

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Steve Mallen, founder of the fabulous theMindEdTrust.org, and co-founder of ZeroSuicideAlliance.com, contributed to this brave documentary about male suicide.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0bgv82g

If you are bereaved/affected/vulnerable please be careful when watching this programme, and have support with you.

TheMindedTrust.org is one of the most sophisticated and impressively researched activist/support initiatives for suicide awareness and prevention.

The ZeroSuicideAlliance is similarly impressive, offering amongst other things free suicide prevention training.

Anyone and everyone should know how to see the warning signs of suicide – in friends, family, and strangers – and to be confident and able to intervene. It’s much easier than you might imagine, and with waiting times several weeks for crisis referral for suicidally unwell people, this is everyone’s business.