Happy anniversary FCCSM!
Politically essential and greatly appreciated have been the projects and actions that the different individuals linked to and committed to the Foundation have offered us in the last two decades. To share in these congratulatory letters, some brief memories along with some of the people who committed themselves to the culture of progress and collective well-being within the framework of the Catalan Congress of Mental Health Foundation. To each and every one of them, especially those I do not name, I thank them wholeheartedly for their dedication in advancing towards new scenarios where the values of solidarity and justice expand. Many, many thanks!!
I remember the emotion and hope upon finding the notebook on human rights, ethics, and mental health from the FCCSM. A few 15 It was the first time I held a publication where people, from their professional roles, were asking for alternatives from a human rights perspective. Curious about this entity I had just discovered, I continued researching its website, and that's how I learned what an Ethics in Care Committee was. All those new insights made me uncomfortable in a wonderfully liberating way, alerting the part of me that had been resigned and accepting of the traumatic experiences I lived through during my first hospitalizations in adolescence.
Reading those published works, as if they opened a space within my mind, allowed me to find more words that helped me connect creativity with discomfort, the need for complaint and denunciation, with the desire to build alternatives within the public system, close to the walls, and with people.
I also remember the feeling of the first time I was part of a meeting where Dr. Clusa, Víctor Martí, and Anna Carrió were present; we were the ones who would participate in a congress roundtable. I can't forget the emotion of seeing an intergenerational working group, and I still feel moved. Al remember the attention Dr. Clusa paid to listening to us, despite the difficulties of his aging body, despite it being past ten at night, despite knowing so much at his age.
I also re-experience with emotion the first pre-launch meeting for the postgraduate course in collective mental health, where Àngels Vives and Jordi Marfà were present, a privilege to consider their questions and listen to their quotes and reflections on the value of people and care.
And the memory of the feeling of pride going to one of the CEA sessions with Silvia Ventura, Angel Martinez, Alicia Roig, Jordi Marfa, and Maria Jesus Rufat, another example, like in the working groups or the think tanks, of the capacity for FCCSM to create spaces for understanding through group reflective action.
I also remember the vibrant emotion of watching David Clusa's book presentation video on YouTube. Speaking Sure from Johanna Moncrieff, another example of how the Foundation creates spaces with a spirit of solidarity and openness, where understanding the reasons for the urgent need for change in the public mental health care model can be expanded.
I feel great gratitude and admiration for the people at the Foundation whom I've had the opportunity to meet over these years. The personal thought of perplexity has continuously accompanied me when considering people with such long, broad, and deep careers of commitment and resistance. Thank you for your contributions; they have been very valuable in shaping my position with more judgment and knowledge.
Congratulations and here's to many more decades of transformative action by the FCCSM!!!!