SCROUNGE, BY AMIE M MARIE – REVIEW

Posted on January 7, 2022 by Norwich Radical in Arts and tagged Amie Marie, art, arts, assessment, disability, dwp, featured, healthcare, job, jobseeker, matthew hopkins, performance, PIP, review, scrounge, theresa may, threatre, toby skelton, unemployment.

by Toby Skelton

Shortly after the 2016 amendments to the assessment of Personal Independence Payments (PIP), a cartoon scolding the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) began doing the rounds on social media. In it, a figure sits behind a desk declaring: “If they drown, they need PIP. If they float, they weren’t ill.” whilst a woman is dragged out of the office by her hair. Accompanied by the caption “Conservatives Disability Policy”, the illustration caught a lot of online attention for this comparison of the DWP’s practices to those of the elementally evil Witchfinder General Matthew Hopkins. Some found it an absurdly distasteful comparison; others deemed it a justified piece of satirical exaggeration. But as Amie M Marie deftly exposes in her new play Scrounge, the cartoon was barely hyperbolic in its analogy.

QUEER LONELINESS & THE IMPENDING MENTAL HEALTH CRISIS

Posted on May 30, 2020 by Norwich Radical in Perspectives and tagged #StayAlert, #StayHome, coronavirus, Covid-19, crisis, featured, health, healthcare, LGBTQIA+, lockdown, london, loneliness, medical, mental health, mental illness, network, NHS, public information, queer, race, racism, support, together, uea pride, uk.

by Kasper Hassett

CW: mental health

Long predating the lockdown, members of the LGBTQIA+ community have reported feelings of isolation and loneliness at alarmingly high levels. This reached a point where ‘queer loneliness’ was dubbed an epidemic, and the mental health of the community overall was recognised as dire. With many now separated from their support networks during lockdown, queer people are experiencing new lows in their mental health. Additionally, much of the previously mentally healthy population is also struggling, and NHS services are suffocating from cuts, meaning that many queer people will miss out on vital mental health services as a complacent wider world focuses on going ‘back to normal’. Continue Reading

ARE WE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER? COVID AND RACISM

Posted on May 25, 2020 by Norwich Radical in Perspectives and tagged #StayAlert, #StayHome, anti black, anti-asian, BAME, Bangladeshi, Belly Mujnga, black, Chinese, coronavirus, Covid-19, crisis, David Williams, doctors, england, featured, government, gynaecology, health, healthcare, James Marion Sims, lockdown, london, medical, minorities, NHS, poverty, public information, race, racism, system, together, uk.

by Lisa Insansa Woods

CW: racism

At the moment, we are led to believe that Covid-19 is a marauder snatching away our media, our minds and our vulnerable population and that the only way to defeat such a pernicious beast is to sing hollow cries of “we are all in this together.” Yes, this should be a time for us to unify in communal admonishment of the situation; a time where we should realise our shared will to thrive alongside our neighbours; a time to join mutual aid groups to help those more vulnerable in a true display of fraternité; but, in doing this, we should not be blind to the fact that we do not share an equal burden.Continue Reading

SOCIAL PRESCRIBING – CURING LONELINESS IN OUR DISTANCING SOCIETY

Posted on May 21, 2018 by Norwich Radical in Community and tagged alcohol, bowthorpe, Brexit, Britain, capitalism, Community, domestic violence, drug use, economics, elderly people, environment, featured, food, Frome, globalisation, GPs, health, healthcare, horticultural therapy, illness, independence, internet, loneliness, mental health, nature, NHS, norfolk, nutrition, peer mentoring, personal debt, PTSD, recreation, relationships, social prescribing, society, Somerset, teamwork, The Grow Organisation, uk, voluntary sector.

By Nicholl Hardwick, for The Grow Organisation

In contemporary Britain, our lives are pervaded with unique health and economic pressures. Capitalism, globalisation, Brexit and the internet have all contributed to a new era of loneliness, community isolation and disconnectedness. We may go days at a time without speaking or having sentimental engagement with another person. In particular, elderly members of the community frequently fall to the wayside as our distancing society ceases to encourage them to function as active participants.

PRISONS BECOMING A DEATH-SENTENCE FOR ROMA

Posted on May 18, 2018 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national and tagged AGFD, Andrias Redjepov, Asociación Gitanas Feministas por la Diversidad, Asturias-Villabona Penitentiary Center, authority, Bekim Demir, discrimination, ERRC, ethnic minority, ethnic profiling, ethnic slurs, Europe, European Roma Rights Centre, featured, Gonzalo Montoya, healthcare, Idrizovo Prison, inequality, International Roma Day, isolation, Jusinov Erdal, Manuel Fernandez, mental health, Murcia Regional Government, overdose, prison, Protocol for Suicide Prevention in Prison, racism, Roma, Romani, Romani Feminism NGO, Shtip prison, Skopje, spain, suicide prevention, targeting, torture.

by Jonathan Lee

Content warning: article contains strong language, ethnic slurs, and graphic descriptions of death, suicide, prison environments and torture.

On April 9th 2018, the day after International Roma Day, a crowd gathered outside the doors of the Murcia Regional Government building in Alicante, Spain. They were not there to celebrate, but to mourn and demonstrate about the unexplained death of twenty-eight-year-old Romani man, Manuel Fernández, on 22nd October 2017. His case is one of many unexplained deaths of Roma in prison.Continue Reading

A CHANGE IS AS GOOD AS A REST?

Posted on December 23, 2017 by Norwich Radical in Perspectives and tagged confession, depression, disability, ehlers danlos sydrome, healthcare, life, mental health, mental health stigma, mental illness, norwich, personal, Perspectives, PTSD, royal national orthopaedic hospital, Scotland, uk.

by Alice Thomson

So much has happened in only a few months, for me personally as well as globally – let’s be honest, the the past year’s events in the United States of America alone of the past year would be tough to sum up in a 1,000 word article. I don’t think I could do justice to the topic. As this is my first article in a while, I thought I’d focus on what I’ve been up to, to give you an idea of the reasons for my absence the last few months.Continue Reading

OPIOIDS AND BAD PHARMA

Posted on November 3, 2017 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national and tagged addiction, Affordable Care Act, bad pharma, drugs, Fentanyl, Greg Walden, healthcare, heroin, incentives, national emergency, Obamacare, opensecrets, opioid, Orrin Hatch, pharma, public health, public health crisis, Trump.

By Gunnar Eigener

Content warning: addiction, needles, mental illness.

Last week, the US President, Donald Trump, instructed the Department of Health and Human Services to declare the opioid crisis that is currently raging across the country a public health emergency. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says that six out of ten drug overdoses involve an opioid, at a current rate of 91 deaths a day. Despite these kinds of statistics, this problem has not been declared a national emergency, as Trump promised it would be, resulting in no funds being released to tackle this crisis. Trump stated that; ‘we are going to overcome addiction in America’. In reality, this barely addresses the deep-seated problems of supply and demand and the culture of the pharmaceutical business ingrained in American life.Continue Reading

WHY THE TORIES DON’T CARE ABOUT NURSES

Posted on July 21, 2017 by Norwich Radical in Student and tagged #MayDUP, #OurNHS, activism, Brexit, Brexit negotiations, bursary cuts, crisis, cuts, DUP, employment, EU, EU students, EU workers, European Economic Area, european union, Free Education, frontline services, future, government, government cuts, health, healthcare, hospitals, How Come We Didn't Know?, Institute of Employment Studies, King's Lynn, magic money tree, Marion Macalpine, migrants, migration, NHS, NHS bursaries, NHS Norfolk Action Group, norfolk, norwich, nurse horror stories, nurses, nursing, nursing student applications, nursing students, politics, privatisation, Queen Elizabeth Hospital King's Lynn, research, Royal College of Nursing, St Margaret's Church of Art, staff shortage, student applications, student debt, student loans, students, Sustainability and Transformation plans, The Telegraph, Tories, tuition fees, UEA, underfunding, universities, workers rights, workforce, workforce crisis.

by Robyn Banks

CW: death, disease, corpses.

Last week we heard that the number of people applying to become nursing students has fallen by 19% in the past year. As this is the first application cycle since government cuts to NHS bursaries, for many this will not be much of a shock. It’s clear that the government’s decision to take away this provision that allowed many students to attend their courses will have serious detrimental effects, not only for the institutions that train nurses but for the NHS as a whole.

THOUGHTS FROM THE FENCES – YARL’S WOOD & THE IMPORTANCE OF IMMIGRANT RIGHTS

Posted on May 18, 2017 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national, Student and tagged #GE2017, abuse, asylum seekers, austerity, borders, Brexit, Britain, British values, crime, cuts, deportation, depression, detention, detention centres, dignity, education, empowerment, government, harassment, hate crime, healthcare, Home Office, homophobia, Hostile Environment Policy, human rights, hunger strike, immigration, immigration law, immigration raids, international students, intimidation, kidnapping, law, legal aid, LGBT+, migrants, migration, money, Movement for Justice, norwich, POC, prison, privatisation, protest, queer, racism, rape, scapegoating, self harm, Serco, solicitors, solidarity, Stansted airport, student activism, students, suicide, survivors, theresa may, tolerance, trauma, tuition fees, UEA, violence, welfare, women, women's rights, work, Yarl's Wood.

by Lotty Clare

Content warning: mentions violence against women, abuse, rape, self-harm, suicide, racism, harassment, homophobia.

Last Saturday, a group of UEA students and Norwich residents travelled to a protest at Yarl’s Wood Immigration Removal Centre in Bedfordshire. This protest was the fifth Movement for Justice by Any Means Necessary (MFJ) has organised to shut down detention centres. As I approached the building, hidden inside an industrial estate, surrounded by fields, in the middle of nowhere, it was just as intimidating and depressing as 6 months ago when I went to Yarl’s Wood for the first time. It looks like a prison, except that it is ‘worse than prison, because you have no rights’, as former detainee Aisha Shua put it. Some women are in Yarl’s Wood because their visa expired, others because their asylum claim was unsuccessful. They have committed no crime. And yet they can be detained there indefinitely.

STUDENTS NEED A REVOLUTION – STUDENTS AND THE ELECTION #1

Posted on May 11, 2017 by Norwich Radical in Student and tagged #GE2017, 1848 revolutions, 1968 protests, abstention, academic freedom, anti-apartheid, Apartheid, apathy, BDS, boycott, catch-22, collective action, desperation, direct action, divestment, erosion of the state, fossil free, Free Palestine, general election, government, healthcare, higher education, hope, insecure employment, israel, jeremy corbyn, Labour, marketisation, minimum wage, misrepresentation, national student survey, non-voters, politics, power structures, privatisation, property ladder, protest, public sector, rebellion, sit ins, snap election, student as consumer, student debt, student loans, student politics, student vote, students, Students and the Election, tef, tony blair, Tories, trade unions, tuition fees, universities, voters, voting.

by Bradley Allsop

In the midst of multiple crises faced by students, universities and schools, the outcome of the snap general election will be a major indicator of the future of the UK education sector. Each week until the vote we are featuring perspectives from our regular contributors and guests on what the election could mean for students.

Students have been at the forefront of progressive politics and change throughout the centuries. We were engaged in the 1848 revolutions that shook Europe, and front and centre of a wave of radical protest that shook the world in 1968. We played a part in challenging apartheid in South Africa and the continued Israeli abuse of the Palestinian people. Most recently we are leading the way on fossil fuel divestment.

healthcare

SCROUNGE, BY AMIE M MARIE – REVIEW

by Toby Skelton

QUEER LONELINESS & THE IMPENDING MENTAL HEALTH CRISIS

ARE WE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER? COVID AND RACISM

PRISONS BECOMING A DEATH-SENTENCE FOR ROMA

A CHANGE IS AS GOOD AS A REST?

OPIOIDS AND BAD PHARMA

WHY THE TORIES DON’T CARE ABOUT NURSES

THOUGHTS FROM THE FENCES – YARL’S WOOD & THE IMPORTANCE OF IMMIGRANT RIGHTS

STUDENTS NEED A REVOLUTION – STUDENTS AND THE ELECTION #1

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