Campaign news

Wigan Athletic Boss’ new signing

News | 8 Comments 3rd April 2010

Wigan Athletic boss Roberto Martinez celebrated an important new signing yesterday ahead of his team’s clash with Manchester City.

He became the first person in Wigan to add his signature to ‘Stamp out Stigma’ – a ground-breaking new campaign petition initiated by 5 Boroughs Partnership NHS Foundation Trust.

“Those who sign this form are making a commitment not to use derogatory words in describing people with mental health and learning disabilities, and for that reason I am only too happy to sign up,” said Martinez.

“I hope other people across Wigan will do the same and help the trust reach its target of 100,000 signatures. The initiative is one that aims to bring the whole community closer together and here at Wigan Athletic we know all about the power of collective support in reaching goals. I hope my name is the first of many.”

The need for the campaign was highlighted when various service users told the

Trust – a specialist mental health and learning disability service provider – that the use of derogatory words and phrases such as ‘nutter’, ‘loony’ and ‘weirdo’ is commonplace in society – something that leaves them feeling unhappy and misunderstood.

This was reinforced by shocking footage from the Trust’s portable purpose-built Big Brother-style booth featuring people talking about their views on mental ill health and learning disabilities on camera.

“We want to educate the public about the realities of mental health problems and learning disabilities and to ask them to make a pledge not to use words that can hurt, offend and stigmatise people suffering from these complex and often distressing conditions,” says Simon Barber, Chief Executive.

“By following Roberto’s example and signing our pledge, people in Wigan can actively show that there is no place for stigma and discrimination in our modern, inclusive society.”

The Stamp out Stigma campaign will be officially launched on April 1. As of that date, readers can log on to www.stampoutstigma.co.uk to pledge, learn more about mental ill health and learning disabilities and other opportunities to back the campaign.

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 3rd, 2010 at 7:17 pm and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.