A Shoot4Change production
[thanks for the support to: Armstrong and The Lotus Flower co.] ————————————–

The freedom in a hug
Eva Quesada
Shoot4Change México

“It´s fucked up having a shitty mind, doctor, one gets locked up for it.” Ubaldo 2013

According to the World Health Organization, mental health, in the world, is deteriorating. The number of people suffering of mental illness is growing every day. We could think this means schizophrenia or some sort of psychotic breakdown but the spectrum includes more than that; depression, anxiety, substance abuse, phobias… Our world’s complexity is ever growing. Our lives are plagued with needs and there’s less and less space to feel and analyse.

Here we speak of stories, of openly lived lives, of feelings. Many studies, many patients of some sort of metal illness refer to their trapped, not understood feelings and how they occasionally turn into anxiety and occasionally turn into voices in their heads… This voices inside their minds, according to schizophrenic patient Dr. Elanor Longden, responded, in her case, to evaded emotions. Her best treatment has to literally pay attention to each one of her voices that where nothing more than whispers of her soul.

Mundo, was the first schizophrenia patient we found in Chiapas, it happened three years ago, he escaped his cage and looked for us and through a synergy of efforts we managed to tell his story and to get him help. And after him came many others; Mateo, Don Humberto, Ubaldo… but the question was always the same. How can a human being survive to years of confinement? The truth is that mental illness still lingers in many parts of the world: discriminated, stigmatized. They are the monsters, the ones that lost their mind, the victims of some sort of witchcraft. They are the people that, in my red lands of Chiapas, are chained because of the lack of a healthcare system that helps them. All it takes is two or three pills a day o one shot per month and it would mark the difference between survival and a life.

But the system and their illness isn’t enough to overcome them: patients like Rosemberg who where forgotten for over nine years survive the darkness, the need to eat their own excrement, the humiliation and total confinement all of which nourishes their illness.

And it is then that the chained become harsh truths, ever present, waiting to be heard or remembered, to recover their human quality. Because in some point in time someone forgot that they aren’t “a mad man”, a monster, a patient, a forgotten cage or a distant scream, they are Ubaldo, Humberto, Iver or Ramiro… and it could’ve been you or me if we had the bad luck of being born in that beautiful but cruel mountain range. But it is also a family, cruelly polluted by ignorance and isolation.

According to Dr. V. Patel, mental illness is more common in marginal areas. And, sadly enough, it is there where the most serious ailments blossom; Just far enough to be out of the reach of our public healthcare system, just close enough to still be reached by stigma. Stigma that must be undertood as “the social devaluation of a person” (Thara and Srinivasan, 2000) based on ignorance, lack of information, and a profound discrimination that turn the patient into an isolated being unable to have any social and economicaly active life.

Irronically, I wonder if this distraction of a system thata should contemplate the analisys and care for mental patients isn’t, in the end, more costly (in every way) than actually doing their job.

The most vulnerable stories are those of the confined; the ones that wait. But we are no longer in a position where we can turn our heads and choos not to see them. We are now in a place where we can join together and give something back. So once again we are here to tell the story of those that lack a voice and to call for volunteer work and creative solutions of those that wish to join us ad offer something to our people.

Clothes, food, medicine or knowledge, everything is welcome. But especially, lets listen to their stories; hug them, because, as Foucault says, mental illnesses are those that we keep at bay, those that we choose not to see because there is something of us in their confinement.
So lets go, together, them and us, out of our cage, and enjoy a second of the true freedom of hug.

Who said that everything is lost? Shoot4Change Reloaded

Shoot 4 Change México has gone through two years of stories, comings and goings thanks to a huge and tiresome effort. Two years in which we’ve tried to earn a spot in the immaginarium of those that live on the other side of the Atlantic, and of those that live in Chiapas’ red lands. Earning a place with those that can help and support us and in our own mind, convincing ourselves that we can actually mean something and change something. Nobody said it would be easy but they never said that, sometimes, it could be so difficult either.

On occasion our spirit lingers and one doubts if this is all worth it, if this will be the last project, because the fruit of our work isn’t always clear. But one carries on.

The Second Brigade for mental illness patients started working around a month ago; together with Laboratorios Armstrong (medical lab) we created postcards and other paperwork, we made a video teaser and participated in specialized forums to inform the public of the current situation in Chiapas and request donations (clothes, blankets, nutritional supplements, etc). Some people where interested in buying photographs so we decided to exchange them for boxes of Ensure (a very helpful nutritional aid), this was quite successful and proved to be a “healthy business”.

Along the road there we also met those who offered their knowledge and others who offered medicine.

part of S4C Team Mexico great gang

At the same time, a new cell of volunteers based in Morelos gathered together several music bands and organized the first Shoot 4 Fest festival; among music, photos and many heart warming gestures. The result was an amazing response from the public and musicians that pushed us to keep going. Most of the participating bands made it clear that they would love to come back whenever we need them.

These same volunteers simultaneously organized two dinner parties in which chefs, restaurateurs and musicians came together to offer themselves and welcome those interested in knowing the stories of Ramiro, Mundo, Mateo and all the other patients we’ve found in the way that have reached far beyond the walls of their cages and inspired many to offer a surprising amount of donations.

And with that we reach the point where we stand today, a week late but ready to leave towards Chiapas and convinced that we will get there with full hands and a warm heart. Knowing that we surpassed by far our goals and that against our plans, but gladly, we have been forced to organize two groups in order to be able to take everything we gathered and with what, as I write, keeps finding its way to us from Mexico City, Morelos, Puebla and Chiapas itself thanks to the previous brigade’s volunteers that where fast to join our efforts. One group leaves this week, the other leaves in august.

So yes, we may have our doubts sometimes, but to that question our answer is overwhelming: NO, this is not our last project. This is the end of a phase and the beginning of a much bigger one. New volunteers, surprisingly committed and involved, have found their way to reinforce us. We are sure we’ll drive Antonio Amendola mad with our new groups, new ideas, and new campaigns.

We are not photographers and doctors any more;

we have designers, chefs, musicians and writers as well all of us

convinced of being a part of Shoot 4 Change México.

¿Quién dijo que todo está perdido? Shoot4Change Reloaded

Shoot 4 Change México ha pasado ya por dos años de historias de ires y venires, en medio de cansancio y mucho esfuerzo. Son dos años de trabajo intenso buscando un espacio en el imaginario de la gente de allá, al otro lado del charco, de allá en la tierra colorada de Chiapas, de allá con quienes pedimos ayuda, de aquí en nuestra mente, convenciéndonos de que sí, se puede. Nadie dijo que iba a ser sencillo, pero nadie nos dijo que a veces iba a ser tan difícil.

Los ánimos bajan en ocasiones y uno, sin duda se cuestiona si esto realmente vale la pena. Si este será el último proyecto porque, a veces los frutos no son tan claros. Pero aún así, uno sigue adelante.

La Segunda Brigada en apoyo a los pacientes de enfermedades mentales inició labores de recaudación hace un mes de la mano con laboratorios Armstrong, creamos postales y trípticos, hicimos un video y participamos en foros de información para dar a conocer la situación de los pacientes y pedir apoyo en especie. Hubo quienes pidieron comprar las fotografías expuestas y decidimos venderlas a costo de cajas de Ensure, un producto útil para la desnutrición. La estrategia tuvo éxito y encontramos allí una brecha de saludable negocio.

En el camino, hubo quienes se acercaron con medicamento y hubo quienes se sumaron con conocimientos.

Por otro lado, de manera casi paralela otra célula de voluntarios con sede en Morelos se organizaron para crear un festival que reuniera a bandas conocidas para hacer el primer Shoot 4 Fest: una velada de música, en medio de fotografías y ternuras. Y ello como resultado, nos acercó a un público que nos motivó a seguir adelante y a unos músicos que sin duda tocaron muchas fibras de nuestro corazón, asegurándonos estar allí cada vez que hubiese una colecta que necesitara su apoyo.

De manera consecutiva, se organizaron cenas de recaudación de fondos, donde chefs y músicos se reunieron de nuevo para contar la historia de Ramiro, de Mundo, de Mateo y de todos los pacientes que trascendieron su encierro y encontraron voz en nuestras imágenes y libertad en el esfuerzo de los voluntarios convencidos en llegar de nuevo hasta ellos ahora cargados de cosas que mejoren sus condiciones de vida.

Y así, llegamos al final de un mes intenso de trabajo, vamos una semana con retraso, pero vamos sabiendo que llegamos con las manos bien llenas y el corazón erguido. Sabiendo que las metas se cumplieron y se rebasaron, que tristemente y felizmente, puedo decir que son tantas las cosas que se han donado que nos vamos en dos grupos que salen esta semana y uno más que sale en agosto, para terminar de llevar todas las cosas que aún ahora, mientras escribo, continúan llegando desde Morelos, Puebla, D.F y Chiapas mismo a través de los estudiantes de la brigada anterior que sin pensarlo, se sumaron a la colecta.

Así que, sí a veces se duda…. Pero ante la pregunta, la contundente respuesta: NO, este no es el último proyecto, este es el fin de una etapa y el comienzo de otra una con más voluntarios involucrados y comprometidos. Estamos seguros de que le sacaremos canas verdes a Antonio Amendola anunciándole nuevos pequeños grupos de trabajo con otras ideas y otras campañas, diciéndole que

ya no son sólo fotógrafos y médicos, ahora somos fotógrafos, médicos, músicos, chefs

todos convencidos de ser Shoot 4 Change México.

El ciclón mexicano está de regreso.

It’s a story of a nice partnership with a special NGO, Partners in Health; and it’s a story of a bunch of young, talented an enthusiast  S4C Mexico photographers that volunteered to join a Partners in Health mission in a remote area of Chiapas.

Partners in Health in an international organization that, for several years, has dedicated to take quality health services to marginalized areas of the world. Today, the Mexican headquarters is starting to operate in the south of the country, in the mountain range of the Chiapas state, where due to geographic, economic and political reasons health services are neither free nor accessible for those that live there.

Shoot 4 Change has created a project to document the work that these doctors do and to promote the basic principle by which they live; health is a right to which all of us deserve access no matter where we live.

Here is a first teaser of the project that we are doing for Partners in Health Mexico.

In a few hours those girls and boys will join again a mission of Partners in Health Mexico and will travel to other remote areas where, in some cases, nobody ever saw any kind of medical assistance.

These are stories worth being told; and these are those stories we love to tell.

Good luck guys

Antonio Amendola

Contrary to what I promised to those extraordinary S4C Mexico friends, I show you today a first teaser of an ongoing project in Chiapas.

It’s a story of a nice partnership with a special NGO, Partners in Health; and it’s a story of a bunch of young, talented an enthusiast  S4C Mexico photographers that volunteered to join a Partners in Health mission in a remote area of Chiapas.

Partners in Health in an international organization that, for several years, has dedicated to take quality health services to marginalized areas of the world. Today, the Mexican headquarters is starting to operate in the south of the country, in the mountain range of the Chiapas state, where due to geographic, economic and political reasons health services are neither free nor accessible for those that live there.

Shoot 4 Change has created a project to document the work that these doctors do and to promote the basic principle by which they live; health is a right to which all of us deserve access no matter where we live.

Here is a first teaser of the project that we are doing for Partners in Health Mexico.

In a few hours those girls and boys will join again a mission of Partners in Health Mexico and will travel to other remote areas where, in some cases, nobody ever saw any kind of medical assistance.

These are stories worth being told; and these are those stories we love to tell.

Good luck guys

Antonio Amendola