Names of thousands of people who died from opioid crisis to cover memorial at Recovery Day
Posted September 7, 2018 6:09 am.
Last Updated September 7, 2018 6:42 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – Seven years running, it is a day that continues to grow in importance as a beacon of awareness in the ongoing opioid crisis in this province. Recovery Day takes place tomorrow, two days after Ottawa pledged more than $70 million to fight the problem.
The idea behind the event, which happens locally in New Westminster this year, is to generate awareness and destigmatize opioid addiction.
Recovery Day BC committee chair Giuseppe Ganci lost one of his best friends to an overdose.
“Our friends are dying. That has inspired us to take action and we need to do more than just talk about it on Facebook and ‘like’ or ‘share’ or show sad emojis on a social media post. We really need to take a look at the multiple names here. There’s families that are suffering from this horrible crisis and we need to take action. Why are these people dying? Why aren’t they getting access to treatment on demand? Why are we still getting these numbers that are increasing? It’s not okay.”
RELATED: New alley signs aimed to help 911 overdose response times in Vancouver
He said a memorial exhibit has been growing over the past few years.
“We’ve collected over a thousand names of people that have passed away through the overdose crisis. These people have been lost too soon, so we’ve decided to create a memorial exhibit… An artist has created a iron tree for us and there’s names on the tree. [We’re] asking people to add more names to it at Recovery Day this year.”
“When people see it, they can see the names and the optics of that just shows you that it’s not just Bridget, it’s not just Donny, it’s not just Ricky — it’s so many more people.”
Ganci added they are trying to emulate what was done in back in the 1980s and 1990s with the “AIDS quilt” and AIDS memorial. “Just have that visual of… it’s not just one person, it’s thousands of names. [We’re trying] to get people to get inspired to take action during this overdose crisis.”
This year’s Recovery Day will be the biggest yet, with 20,000 people expected at the event in New Westminster, which will feature a Ted-X-style speaker stage, wrestling, and a free concert by Coquitlam’s Matthew Good.
