A moment of confrontation and exchange between those who work in mental health, culture and society, to rediscover the interweaving of a common and collective action: this is what it intends to be «Touch the earth, wet the roses, change things» day dedicated to Franco Rotelli – one of the major protagonists of the psychiatric revolution, who passed away in March – scheduled for 6 March starting at 10:30 in the park of San Giovanni in Trieste and promoted by the association Standing conference for mental health in the world – Copersamm.
The physician, successor of Frank Basaglia, then director of the Trieste healthcare company, for four years general manager of the Caserta healthcare company and finally regional councilor president of the Health and Social Policies Commission of the Friuli Venezia Giulia Region, was the architect, in the 1990s, of the organization of the territorial health, habitat/micro-area projects and cooperation and social enterprise strategies and practices. For him, “perhaps we have looked too much at psychiatry and too little at mental health. Looking at mental health means going much further. It means looking at how people are doing and therefore going beyond the boundaries of non-disease disease. It means talking about what makes people feel good and what makes them feel bad, and how to try to do something to make them feel less bad».
It is precisely to this idea that the event in the park of San Giovanni is aimed, where the psychiatric hospital once stood and where Franco Rotelli wanted to give life to a widespread rose garden to plant beauty on the horror of the asylum; those who work in the world of mental health, social enterprise and culture will be able to speak up and make their voices heard, at a time when reports of an impoverishment of local services and public health are coming from many quarters. “For the past sixty years,” says the psychiatrist Joanna Del Giudicepresident of Copersamm, «a lot has been done, among other things we have dismantled the asylum, but a lot still needs to be done. Today, faced with particularly weakened social and health services from a cultural, resource and organizational model point of view, it is essential to develop critical and collective thinking starting from the solicitations of masters such as Basaglia and Rotelli. We believe it is valuable to be able to listen to those who in the next twenty years will have responsibility for the health of citizens, and not only, together with the highest representative of the institutions that deal with mental health in the world, the director of the World Health Organization Dévora Kestel. Only by putting the person at the center, and not the disease, and promoting rights, protagonism and participation will we be able to get out of the crisis: collective action is the only winning answer.»
The day, open to all, will be conducted by the journalist Massimo Cirri and foresees – after greetings from the authorities and a morning of contributions on “Psychiatry or Mental Health“, “The logic of the third” and “The city that cures” – at 1:00 pm the intervention of Dévora Kestel, director of the Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse of the World Health Organization; in the afternoon, after a discussion on «Public services» and «Social enterprise», at 16.30 there will be a moment of music and at 17:00 the inauguration of the photographic exhibition dedicated to the island of Leros curated by the photographer Antonella Pizzamiglio.