About Us
We are a consumer-run mental health resource centre that offers information and advice to individuals and groups in who are providing consumer developed initiatives (CDIs).
Our Consumer Place - www.ourconsumerplace.com.au - has been developed by consumers for consumers. It is funded by the Department of Human Services (Government of Victoria) and auspiced by Our Community.
The Our Consumer Place Team
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A cartoonist, writer, teacher, learner, chronicler, historian and activist, Merinda has lived, fought and taught her way through 22 years of active service for people diagnosed with 'mental illness' in Australia. An 'old gal' now, Merinda is keen to contribute her energy to Our Consumer Place, believing it provides an ideal hub for intergenerational change, mentoring, the preservation of the history of activism, and the provision of a smorgasbord of skills, knowledge, information, training and specific technical support for all groups of people connected through their experience of madness, badness and sadness. A co-winner of the 2004 Australian Human Rights Award in the Community Category, Merinda holds a deep belief that it is time for 'consumers' to develop their own ways of doing things - their own groups, their own services, their own networks, websites and small business. She believes that with unity and respect for each other, and a rigorous understanding of what groups need to know to function well, we can achieve much more together - in our own groups and human rights troupes - than we can as individual atolls in the sea of pretty tough politics that surrounds mental health service provision in this country. |