03.09.19
2 minute read
To highlight this year’s International Overdose Awareness Day, BDP’s Creative Community groups took to the streets of Bristol City Centre to showcase a public pop-up performance.
Held annually, the aim of International Overdose Awareness Day is to both raise awareness and reduce the stigma of drug-related deaths, while remembering those who have died because of drug overdose.
The voices and performances were both glorious and poignant. Thank you to everyone who made this not just possible but an amazing experience to be part of. This was a first for BDP in marking International Overdose Awareness Day in a public way and an important step in standing up against stigma.
– Maggie Telfer, BDP CEO
Featuring members from BDP’s drama group, orchestra and choir, this year’s performance was held in partnership with Brighton-based arts and recovery organisations, who hosted their own performances in Brighton.
In 2018, Cascade Creative Recovery the Brighton-based, peer-led recovery organisation, created a series of pop-up performances with their drama group and choir to raise awareness about overdose.This year they joined forces with Small Performance Adventures, a Brighton theatre company creating workshops and events with people in recovery, and BDP to produce the new simultaneous Bristol and Brighton pop-up performances.
Our performances are a way of us remembering the people we know whose lives have been lost to drugs or alcohol. They also help raise communities’ awareness that most drug related deaths are accidental. In the first half of this year alone, BDP has supplied the life-saving drug Naloxone on 548 occasions, including replacing 70 supplies reported to have been used to save someone’s life.
– Maggie Telfer, BDP CEO
