On the occasion of the death of Eric Rofes, one of the founders of the gay men’s health movement and one of the visionaries who inspired me, it seems important to acknowledge that the health care system in Portland is tragically failing most men, especially queer men. Even the shrinking number of men who have health insurance receive virtually no wellness support from their insurance, and often receive very little beyond wildly escalating premiums. As a lifelong wellness organizer, I’m sure Eric would say, “Stop crying and start organizing!
Below is an essay on the need for, and practical strategies for establishing, a Men’s Wellness Network in the Portland metro area. With our health care system in a state of collapse, it is high time we did something practical and simple to support one another’s wellness. Please read the brief essay below and consider how you can become involved with creating a vital network intended to nurture our collective and individual wellness.
WE WILL NEED:
1) Volunteers to help create a Men’s Wellness Network – see list below.
2) To get the word out. Please forward this e-mail to every man in your community, and consider bringing it up in conversation.
3) Immediate donations of $50-$100 to help us establish a powerful, secure online database that will support the creation of a Men’s Wellness Network. We need to raise $2000 by mid July and we have already raised $1300 in the last week. (Please send your tax-deductible donation to Q-LAND/CIC; 3026 SE 39th Ave; Portland, OR 97202).
VOLUNTEER POSITIONS NEEDED . . .
* WELLNESS COACHES: help men define and manifest their specific wellness visions, understand and overcome wellness challenges, recognize and marshal their wellness resources, and gain confidence and self esteem through vision-driven service to other men in the network.
* MEMBERSHIP TEAM MEMBERS: help invite men to give time and/or money to join the network and keep track of what they need and what they give.
* WEB DATABASE DEVELOPER: create a web-based database that facilitates men joining the network and securely records their visions, needs, challenges, resources, and contributions of time, money, and knowledge, and facilitates men sharing information within mutual support groups designed to meet their specific needs, contribute their resources, and reach their goals.
* DEVELOPMENT TEAM MEMBERS: help raise seed money to launch the Network’s coaching, support groups, and other systems.
Please contact Paul Fukui at volunteer@qland.org or 503-223-8822 if you want more information about these positions. The essay below will tell you why your contribution and these volunteer positions may be critical to your wellness and the wellness of countless other men in our community.
WHY WE NEED A MEN’S WELLNESS NETWORK and
WHAT WE CAN DO TO CREATE IT HERE and NOW . . .
Portland has one of the highest percentages of men who either don’t have health insurance or are grossly under-insured. Because of sexism, homophobia, huge unemployment, massive cuts in public and private health insurance services and coverage, skyrocketing healthcare costs, the failure of health education, and the failure of our political and corporate leadership to prioritize healthcare, more and more men, especially queer men, are contracting and not being adequately treated for HIV, STDs, heart disease, prostate and other cancers, drug/alcohol/sex addictions, depression, anxiety, diabetes, suicidal thoughts/behaviors, and stress-related chronic illnesses like back/neck pain, excess weight, acid reflux and other digestive disorders, etc. It is no accident that men die on average five years younger than women in this state. We have allowed the health care and health education systems to ignore and abandon us.
WE CAN SOLVE OUR PROBLEM: On the occasion of Eric’s death, it seems imperative to say that men CAN and MUST create, and in fact ARE creating, an alternative wellness system that provides highly tailored services to all kinds of men based on our needs for mind/body/spirit wellness and an ethic of mutual support, rather than an ethic of greed and scarcity. We must create a system that learns about and engages each man’s specific wellness visions, challenges, and resources. And most importantly this system must not abandon men when they suffer wellness or financial set backs. It must be there no matter what.
As a record number of us grow older, we cannot afford to wait for the government or health insurance companies to fix the health care system. We now have one of the worst health care systems in the developed world. With costs increasing exponentially while government and the business sector continue to cut budgets, almost everyone is predicting the current system will either continue to get worse -- or collapse entirely.
This fall Q-LAND will be launching a new Men’s Wellness Coaching program that will train men to support one another to:
1) Clarify your individual wellness visions,
2) Overcome and/or manage your specific wellness challenges, and
3) Effectively recognize and utilize your wellness resources.
This coaching program will also help men with similar visions and challenges to create highly tailored mutual support groups such as a weight loss group, a diabetes support group, a dating lab for men whose loneliness is harming them, a right livelihood group for men whose lack of meaningful employment is making them sick, etc.
The coaching program and the mutual support groups, like all other Q-LAND programs, will be open to men regardless of their ability to pay. We expect all men in the wellness network to be of service to other men in the network in ways that match their abilities, skills, and resources. Again, no one will be turned away for lack of funds or because of pre-existing conditions.
We will serve one another from an ethic of abundance and mutual support. While this sounds like pie-in-the-sky, such a wellness network is based on the traditional bartering and mutual support systems used by rural, indigenous, and traditional societies all over the world throughout human history. Bartering and mutual support for health care is a much older, more reliable, and more traditionally successful system than health insurance (which is why the current health insurance system in the U.S. is in a state of collapse). Until universal healthcare somehow miraculously arrives from on high, a Men’s Wellness Network is something concrete and immediately useful we can experiment with in the Portland men’s community. We can learn from one another, and we can help one another.
In the coming years your health will increasingly depend on the quality of the network of people who will support your wellness no matter what. Money will not be enough. Even wealthy people are finding themselves bankrupt overnight by the ways our state and nation fails to deal with health insurance and catastrophic illness. Traditional health insurance and the bloated health care industry it is propping up are increasingly becoming a mirage that gives no one wellness. It is time to invest in a network of men, here and now, who can and will support all of us in very practical, individualized, affordable, and holistic ways.
Let’s start small, make lots of mistakes, learn from them quickly, and build very real and practical systems of mutual support.
We can do this. You can help.
Bart Church, Program Coordinator
Q-LAND: Queer Love Action Network for Discovery
www.qland.org
bart@qland.org
503-223-8822 X1
of, by, and for all the men who need and deserve it.
P.S. -- Q-LAND is a non-profit men's wellness network that empowers diverse men in the Portland, OR area to discover and manifest their individual and collective potential for wellness, community, friendship/intimacy, spirituality, and play. We do this by supporting and creating venues and values for life-long, collaborative learning and heart-conscious community among men. We inspire men to live and love well -- through:
* wellness coaching
* social/play events,
* healing touch events,
* yoga and meditation classes,
* online and phone wellness information and referral, and
* other peer-led programs to promote mind, body, spirit wellness among men.
Let me know if you'd like to donate time and/or money to help us empower more men.
Below is an essay on the need for, and practical strategies for establishing, a Men’s Wellness Network in the Portland metro area. With our health care system in a state of collapse, it is high time we did something practical and simple to support one another’s wellness. Please read the brief essay below and consider how you can become involved with creating a vital network intended to nurture our collective and individual wellness.
WE WILL NEED:
1) Volunteers to help create a Men’s Wellness Network – see list below.
2) To get the word out. Please forward this e-mail to every man in your community, and consider bringing it up in conversation.
3) Immediate donations of $50-$100 to help us establish a powerful, secure online database that will support the creation of a Men’s Wellness Network. We need to raise $2000 by mid July and we have already raised $1300 in the last week. (Please send your tax-deductible donation to Q-LAND/CIC; 3026 SE 39th Ave; Portland, OR 97202).
VOLUNTEER POSITIONS NEEDED . . .
* WELLNESS COACHES: help men define and manifest their specific wellness visions, understand and overcome wellness challenges, recognize and marshal their wellness resources, and gain confidence and self esteem through vision-driven service to other men in the network.
* MEMBERSHIP TEAM MEMBERS: help invite men to give time and/or money to join the network and keep track of what they need and what they give.
* WEB DATABASE DEVELOPER: create a web-based database that facilitates men joining the network and securely records their visions, needs, challenges, resources, and contributions of time, money, and knowledge, and facilitates men sharing information within mutual support groups designed to meet their specific needs, contribute their resources, and reach their goals.
* DEVELOPMENT TEAM MEMBERS: help raise seed money to launch the Network’s coaching, support groups, and other systems.
Please contact Paul Fukui at volunteer@qland.org or 503-223-8822 if you want more information about these positions. The essay below will tell you why your contribution and these volunteer positions may be critical to your wellness and the wellness of countless other men in our community.
WHY WE NEED A MEN’S WELLNESS NETWORK and
WHAT WE CAN DO TO CREATE IT HERE and NOW . . .
Portland has one of the highest percentages of men who either don’t have health insurance or are grossly under-insured. Because of sexism, homophobia, huge unemployment, massive cuts in public and private health insurance services and coverage, skyrocketing healthcare costs, the failure of health education, and the failure of our political and corporate leadership to prioritize healthcare, more and more men, especially queer men, are contracting and not being adequately treated for HIV, STDs, heart disease, prostate and other cancers, drug/alcohol/sex addictions, depression, anxiety, diabetes, suicidal thoughts/behaviors, and stress-related chronic illnesses like back/neck pain, excess weight, acid reflux and other digestive disorders, etc. It is no accident that men die on average five years younger than women in this state. We have allowed the health care and health education systems to ignore and abandon us.
WE CAN SOLVE OUR PROBLEM: On the occasion of Eric’s death, it seems imperative to say that men CAN and MUST create, and in fact ARE creating, an alternative wellness system that provides highly tailored services to all kinds of men based on our needs for mind/body/spirit wellness and an ethic of mutual support, rather than an ethic of greed and scarcity. We must create a system that learns about and engages each man’s specific wellness visions, challenges, and resources. And most importantly this system must not abandon men when they suffer wellness or financial set backs. It must be there no matter what.
As a record number of us grow older, we cannot afford to wait for the government or health insurance companies to fix the health care system. We now have one of the worst health care systems in the developed world. With costs increasing exponentially while government and the business sector continue to cut budgets, almost everyone is predicting the current system will either continue to get worse -- or collapse entirely.
This fall Q-LAND will be launching a new Men’s Wellness Coaching program that will train men to support one another to:
1) Clarify your individual wellness visions,
2) Overcome and/or manage your specific wellness challenges, and
3) Effectively recognize and utilize your wellness resources.
This coaching program will also help men with similar visions and challenges to create highly tailored mutual support groups such as a weight loss group, a diabetes support group, a dating lab for men whose loneliness is harming them, a right livelihood group for men whose lack of meaningful employment is making them sick, etc.
The coaching program and the mutual support groups, like all other Q-LAND programs, will be open to men regardless of their ability to pay. We expect all men in the wellness network to be of service to other men in the network in ways that match their abilities, skills, and resources. Again, no one will be turned away for lack of funds or because of pre-existing conditions.
We will serve one another from an ethic of abundance and mutual support. While this sounds like pie-in-the-sky, such a wellness network is based on the traditional bartering and mutual support systems used by rural, indigenous, and traditional societies all over the world throughout human history. Bartering and mutual support for health care is a much older, more reliable, and more traditionally successful system than health insurance (which is why the current health insurance system in the U.S. is in a state of collapse). Until universal healthcare somehow miraculously arrives from on high, a Men’s Wellness Network is something concrete and immediately useful we can experiment with in the Portland men’s community. We can learn from one another, and we can help one another.
In the coming years your health will increasingly depend on the quality of the network of people who will support your wellness no matter what. Money will not be enough. Even wealthy people are finding themselves bankrupt overnight by the ways our state and nation fails to deal with health insurance and catastrophic illness. Traditional health insurance and the bloated health care industry it is propping up are increasingly becoming a mirage that gives no one wellness. It is time to invest in a network of men, here and now, who can and will support all of us in very practical, individualized, affordable, and holistic ways.
Let’s start small, make lots of mistakes, learn from them quickly, and build very real and practical systems of mutual support.
We can do this. You can help.
Bart Church, Program Coordinator
Q-LAND: Queer Love Action Network for Discovery
www.qland.org
bart@qland.org
503-223-8822 X1
of, by, and for all the men who need and deserve it.
P.S. -- Q-LAND is a non-profit men's wellness network that empowers diverse men in the Portland, OR area to discover and manifest their individual and collective potential for wellness, community, friendship/intimacy, spirituality, and play. We do this by supporting and creating venues and values for life-long, collaborative learning and heart-conscious community among men. We inspire men to live and love well -- through:
* wellness coaching
* social/play events,
* healing touch events,
* yoga and meditation classes,
* online and phone wellness information and referral, and
* other peer-led programs to promote mind, body, spirit wellness among men.
Let me know if you'd like to donate time and/or money to help us empower more men.
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