universalcare - a psychedelic emergency project
TRANSCRIPT
Universal Care
A sustainable psychedelic emergency service for festivals
Contents of the presentation
• What is UniversalCare
• Environment and ecological foot-print
• Number of people involved
• Budget and economical trasparency
• UniversalCare: a psychedelic emergency service and a fundraising project towards MAPS at the same time
What is Universal Care?
• Is a project of psychedelic crisis management and information about psychoactives, born in 2010 from a group of highly qualified people who worked in the KosmiCare project at the Boom Festival in Portugal, with the intention to offer this service to other festivals in the world.
KosmiCare 2010 - Portugal
Universal Care: a new organization
UniversalCare and KosmiCare are 2 different projects:
KosmiCare will continue to exist as it is a project created and financed by the Boom Festival;
UniversalCare is an autonomous and independent project with the goal to offer his service to other festivals.
UniversalCare: a new infrastructure
Environment
• The electricity for the ambient/chill out music and the lights will be 100% from photovoltaic panels;
• We will use only low energy consuming led lamps;
• The production of garbage will be very low: there will be no use of one-use plastic plates and glasses.
The new infrastructure
• The new infrastructure takes only 2 day to be ready. It produces from solar energy all the electricity required.
• In case the festival organization can’t afford this infrastructure, Universal Care can use smaller and cheaper structures as tents or small domes.
More info about ther project
The project is composed by 2 parts:
• risk reduction service, counseling and psychedelic emergency management;
• information about psychoactive substances with a psychedelic library including more then 200 books in english and other languages.
A useful service:
• The presence of this kind of service is very useful in any festival where there are people involved in psychedelic exploration:
• It reduces the possibility of intervention of local authorities;
• It maximizes the possible benefits of the psychedelic experience;
• It offers a counseling service about the use of psychoactives;
• It contributes, through the psychedelic library, to enrich the cultural offer of the festival.
Number of people involved
25 people will be involved in the project:
• 21 volunteers, who will be selected though a questionary;
• 3 team leaders, with the task of coordinating the volunteers during the working shifts;
• 1 general coordinator.
The general coordinator
• The general coordinator has the task to relate with the festival organizers, to help the team leaders and to coordinate the meetings before the festivals;
• He will also organize the psychedelic library and the videoprojection of documetaries about psychedelics.
Food
• The food required to sustain the team will be autonomously cooked.
• The volunteers are free to eat in other places of the festival if they prefer.
This choice has 3 reasons:
• To reduce as much as possible the amount of garbage of the project;
• To ensure good quality food, close to the location of the project;
• To exclude the possibility of food-related problems, caused by possible unforseen problems in the festival organization.
The budget
• The required budget is discussed with the organizers of the festivals in accordance with their economic possibilities.
The budget covers:
• food, basic medical materials, blankets, pillows, flyers about the Universal Care service, the work of the general coordinator and the team leaders, the travelling costs to bring all the materials and the books of the psychedelic library.
Trasparency
• Universal Care is committed to write an open list of all expenses.
• Universal Care will have the total trasparency towards the volunteers and the festival organizers.
Other requests towards festival organizers:
• 1 water tap close to the location of the project;
• electricity for lights, mobile phones and notebooks;
• 25 tickets for the festivals;
• permission for one caravan to stay next to the location of the project;
• Permission to sell fruit juices ( no alcohol) and food close to the location of the project.
• There will be no use of one-use plates and glasses. Plates and glasses will be washed and re-used, giving an example of eco-friendly food service.
The income will be so destinated:
• 50% divided in equal parts among the 25 participants at the project as partial travel remboursements;
• 25% to Universal Care as budget for future projects;
• 25% to MAPS (www.maps.org), to be invested in psychedelic research.
The permission to sell juices and food allows to sustain MAPS, Universal Care and at the same time cover part of the travel costs of the people involved in the project, without putting economical weight on the festival organizers.
Universal Care believes that the work of the volunteers has a great value and that it deserves to be recognized as much as possible.
“Awareness is the core of personality, the
gift of the Lord to human kind. Now, we
have LSD but we don’t have the religious
ceremony to go with it. We have to find a
place so these substances can be taken in
good circumstances.”
Albert Hoffmann
World Psychedelic Symposium, Basel, 2006
