Freedom Center is transforming! After 10+ years of community support, education, and human rights activism, Freedom Center is in a new phase!
As our community has grown and become successful, we've changed. Our groups and activities are more informal and small scale these days. We encourage people who want to connect to find Freedom Center folks face to face in the Northampton area community, and through the Recovery Learning Community in Holyoke.
Everyone involved with us over the years is excited about the transformations in Western Massachusetts since we began. We were the first organization bringing peer-run services to the area; the first to bring holistic wellness programs into mental health; the first to bring coming off medications into open discussion; the first to go on the radio; one of the first to organize against psychiatric abuse -- Freedom Center truly led the way in the Pioneer Valley and made a big impact nationally and even internationally.
Today state funding for peer run services is a reality in Massachusetts in part because of pressure from the Freedom Center. There's a new awareness of our issues like never before, and while there is still is a great need for activism unhindered by government funding, the regional advances in peer run services are huge. Many of our efforts are now underway through the resources and funding of new organizations, and Freedom Center organizers have become involved with the new Recovery Learning Communities, the Afiya peer-run hospital alternative respite, and national organizing. Freedom Center co-founders Oryx Cohen and Will Hall no longer live in the area - Oryx was Recovery Learning Community co-Director and now works with the National Empowerment Center, and Will works as a trainer, consultant, and therapist, as well as continuing his radio and community development work. Lee Entel is now an acupuncturist in Colorado, and other organizers from the early days of Freedom Center continue activism to transform the mental health system.
This website is a wealth of information and links to further Western Massachusetts resources for human rights and mental health alternatives, as well as about Freedom Center's rich history of activism and mutual support. We encourage you to use this as a jumping off place to getting involved with the broader movement.
-- Will Hall
