MIRIAM LITWIN<\/p>\n
ONE of the key campaigners behind Richmond\u2019s medically supervised injecting room will be heading to Ballarat next Thursday with the aim of encouraging residents to become peaceful activists.<\/p>\n
The talk by Judy Ryan will take place at Ballarat Community Health in Lucas from 5pm.<\/p>\n
Ms Ryan\u2019s goal is to show residents that they can do something about a problem.<\/p>\n
\u201cI tell my story as an accidental activist and then throw it open to the audience,\u201d she said. \u201cIs there an issue here and is there something you can do about it?<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople can become activists without marching up and down the street. It can be as easy as contacting your local politician. We can change the world just by doing that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dr Adam Straub will also be in attendance talking about local drug and alcohol issues.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not saying Ballarat needs an injecting room, I just talk about drug addiction as a broad illness from a community perspective,\u201d said Ms Ryan.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe get attention about addiction issues in Melbourne, but country areas tend to be forgotten. I talk to communities about what\u2019s going on and what they can do about it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ms Ryan was inspired to begin her activism when in 2016 she found a young man collapsed outside her home in Melbourne.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t see the people with addiction as junkies; I saw them as someone\u2019s child or grandchild that needed some help,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat would I want someone to do if they found my son collapsed at their back gate, walk over him or help him?\u201d<\/p>\n
Ms Ryan is originally from country Victoria and was awarded an OAM in 2022 for her services to community health.<\/p>\n
She has also released a book called You Talk, We Die.<\/p>\n