Overdose Awareness Day

Later this month, the Campbell River Community Action Team, along with several community partners, will host an International Overdose Awareness Day (IOAD) event at Spirit Square.

The event - Thursday, August 31st - will take place in two parts at Spirit Square. From 3-5 pm, community partners will be on site with education materials, resource information, and Naloxone training. At 5 pm, the education section of the event will end, and the event will shift to be more oriented towards a community memorial until 7 pm. From 5-7 pm, the event will hold a casual space for people to sit, listen to music, write letters, or create art to remember and honour loved ones who have been lost to this crisis or who are still struggling.

International Overdose Awareness Day provides an annual opportunity for communities to come together to remember those lost to the drug-poisoning crisis and to educate the public about the tools that are available to help prevent future drug poisonings in our community.

Action Team Coordinator Gwen Donaldson notes that we are currently in the 8th year of this public health emergency. She says the crisis is now at a scale where it is hard to imagine that it has not, in some way, touched the lives of every single British Columbian.

The event will also include the "Weaving the Layers" public art project, with the goal of fostering togetherness, and to dispel the stigma and discrimination of substance use, drug-poisoning, and mental health, while providing opportunities for connection, creative expression, and a greater senses of community.

More information about the Community Action Team can be found at www.communityactioncr.ca