Community mobilisation | self-organising

You might have noticed throughout this course, that people often mention that harm reduction programs are working WITH people who use drugs, rather than FOR people who use drugs. Looking back at Judy’s and Mat’s previous videos, I’m sure you see why people chose to use this language. In this video, Mat dives us deeper into the second component of community mobilisation; self-organising of people who use drugs.

In week 1, we already heard from Louise Vincent, in the frontline to fight the overdose epidemic. This project is a beautiful example of an entirely community-led initiative. Mat is an expert in providing technical support in setting up and fostering self-organisation of communities of people who use drugs. He explains that.. “Self-organisation is when community members come together to form their own initiatives to respond to community needs.”

We will hear from examples in his home-town, as well as from his work with Raheem in Afghanistan (we met Raheem in week 1). At the end of this second week, you will hear from another fantastic community-led initiative in San Francisco.