In 1996, in an inquiry into mental health services, Judge Ken Mason recommended that the government fund a public education campaign to reduce discrimination associated with mental illness. He thought this was essential to improve the status and wellbeing of people with experience of mental illness. The review said:
“We support a public awareness campaign – it is a must. It is fundamentally wrong that a vulnerable group in our society should be continually subjected to the comments and actions of those who possess an outcast mentality … We are optimistic enough to believe that a well-informed New Zealand public will then realise that [people with a mental illness] are people whom we should nurture and value."
Mason Inquiry into Mental Health Services, New Zealand 1996
In 1997, the Ministry of Health launched a five-year public health project with funding of $12.6 million for both nationwide and community programmes. Since 2001 the government has funded the project as a core public health activity.
The origins of the Like Minds name and logo
The Like Minds logo is based on the winning entry to an art competition for people with experience of mental illness.
The logo uses the maths symbol ≥ which stands for greater than or equal to. In the project it means ‘greater than discrimination, equal to others’.
The phrase ‘Like Minds, Like Mine’ plays on the phrase that ‘we are all of like mind’. This means different things to different people. Some ways of understanding it have been:
- Mental illness can happen to anyone;
- Look at similarities rather than differences; and
- We are all similar.
The Māori slogan, ‘whakaitia te whakawhiu i te tangata’ means ‘reduce your potential to discriminate’.
|
