Stephen Fry In Running For Mental Health Award
Actor and comedian Stephen Fry has been shortlisted for a prestigious award after talking candidly on television about his mental health problems.
He has been nominated for the BT Mind Champion of the Year Award, along with activists, campaigners and fundraisers who have challenged discrimination against people with mental health problems.
Mr Fry’s acclaimed documentary, The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive, explained his and other people’s experience of living with bipolar disorder. Announcing his nomination, Mind said he introduced the programme with humour, gentleness, great understanding and optimism; challenged the stigma surrounding bipolar disorder; and helped to increase public understanding.
Previous winners have included Frank Bruno, the Archers and mental health campaigner Peter Campbell.
For the first time, the public can vote for the award at Mind.org/champ
Other nominees include Derek Hutchinson, who established the group Survivors’ Campaign Against Lobotomy and Psychosurgery (Scalps), and is known internationally for his campaigning work. He has campaigned for a monument in memory of the 2,800 people who died and are buried in unmarked graves at the site of the old High Royds Asylum near Leeds.
Jo Huxster and Antonia Bolingbroke-Kent, who raised money for Mind by driving a Thai tuk tuk from Bangkok to Brighton, inspired by Jo’s experience of depression and self-harm. Through their 12,500-mile jaunt they raised £37,000 and helped raise awareness of what it means to be a young woman with a mental health problem.
Louise Pembroke, who has campaigned for almost 20 years on the issues of self-harm and hearing voices, promoting understanding through the creative arts. In her DVD, Dedication to the Seven: Hearing Voices in Dance, she performs her experience of hearing voices and her coping mechanisms to dance.
Patrick Wood, a training and development worker for the UK Advocacy Network, who also uses music and art to encourage people to see themselves as far more than service users.
Simon Heyes, a member of South Somerset Mind and Speak Up Somerset, who has written one of the best user guides to recovery, The Art of Recovery: a Pocket Guide to Recovering from Mental Illness.
The winner will be announced at the BT Mind Awards ceremony, hosted by Mind’s president Lord Melvyn Bragg later this month.
Other awards will be presented for BT Mind Book of the Year, BT Mind Journalist of the Year and BT Mind Student Journalist of the Year.