MindFreedom International

Video of Vesper Moore, MFI Board Member on Why the Shield is Important

MindFreedom’s Origins and Goal

For decades, MindFreedom International has been working to raise an independent voice in favor of human rights in the mental health system and advocate for informed consent, disability justice, and community-run alternatives. We are independently funded and do not accept any money from governments or drug companies. That is why our request for funding is so important: the need is great and the availability of funding for unbiased perspectives and care work is scarce. It is so very rare to find people willing and able to listen to the oppression of psychiatric survivors, people with mental health diagnoses, neurodivergent people, and disabled people.

Support the MFI Shield To Stop Human Rights Abuses in Psychiatry!

We are now raising funds for our Shield Campaign. MindFreedom International's Shield advocates for people who have been deprived of their rights by the mental health system. These are rights to make the basic choices that many of us take for granted.

With your help, MFI responds to complaints about forced treatments and violations of basic freedoms against individuals by the system.

When someone has been traumatized, is hurting emotionally, is confused about life, or feels trapped and alone, too often their options are limited. And far too often, these "options" are being confined to a psychiatric institution and/or forcibly drugged.

And in response, we have mobilized our members and supporters in support of people trying to escape forced electroshock therapy, drugging, and long-term psychiatric hospitalization. With the power of numbers we can expose human rights abuses in the mental health system, be they involuntary psychiatric procedures or people trapped in abusive guardianships.

Because we know that with the support and fully-informed knowledge of alternatives, people can overcome their difficulties. Those of us in crisis do not need to be subjected to harsh and demeaning interventions by the system or treated like prisoners by medical staff.

Due to the high volume of complaints we hear, MindFreedom International urgently needs financial aid to expand our ability to address these complaints.

MFI continues to receive an increasing amount of calls for help. Because of this, we are in need of more resources to protect people's rights. And further, we must continue to inform the public of what is actually needed for those in crisis.

MindFreedom operates almost entirely on the donated work and time of our amazing community of psychiatric survivors, mental health consumers, and allies.

And our Shield successes have been gratifying. But our financial resources limit our capacity to respond to the many desperate requests for help that we receive daily.

Above all, the MFI Shield needs money for financing and staffing our Shield operations, which have grown to more than we can reasonably manage with what we have! For example, the Shield needs improved funds and staffing for:

• Communication with individuals in locked facilities
• Better and wider publication of Shield Alerts
• Fact-checking and research
• Searching for attorneys
• Finding expert witnesses
• Locating potential alternative medical providers
• Building partnerships with other advocacy organizations
• And more!

To find Shield information:

mindfreedom.org/shield

MFI is one of only a few nonprofit advocacy organizations in the United States that relies solely on individual donor gifts and membership revenues to keep our operations afloat. To remain true to our mission and values, we take no grant money from the government.

We embrace our shared mission with other non-profit disability and social justice organizations. Working together with our allies, we strive to expand our capacity to empower people regardless of their circumstances.

For more information on MFI’s work, and if you want to become a member of MFI and/or Shield, see our website: 

https://mindfreedom.org/

Please contribute financial support to enable us to expand and continue our work.

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