This year, #MEAction Scotland will be doing smaller, more focused activities for #MillionsMissing than previous years, and we are asking the community to take part in the digital campaign, rather than joining us in person. We also need people to email their MSPs, which there is information about below.
Volunteers are planning two main activities during ME Awareness Week in May.
Parliamentary event for MSPs – 9th May
Following the successful debate in the Scottish Parliament in February, Sue Webber MSP is again supporting the ME community in Scotland by hosting a lunchtime event for MSPs on Tuesday 9th May.
It will be a drop-in event in the parliament, where MSPs will be able to stop by and talk to #MEAction Scotland volunteers about the urgent changes needed for the ME community. A couple of people with ME will speak to share their stories. We will encourage MSPs to join us in our campaign and put pressure on the government.
As usual when it comes to engagement with politicians, the best way to convince your MSPs to come along is an email from you! If you can, please send an email asking your MSP to attend the event. There are links to a template email you can copy and paste at the bottom of this article.
Demonstration outside a medical establishment – 12th May
On the day of #MillionsMissing, 12th May, #MEAction Scotland volunteers will hold a small demonstration outside a medical establishment in Edinburgh. The aim will be to target healthcare professionals with information about the prevalence and severity of ME, and show that people with ME are desperate for doctors to listen to us and believe us. We’re not giving out the specific location to avoid being stopped before we get started!
This will not be on the scale of previous #MillionsMissing events in Scotland and we’re not asking members of the community to join us in person. We understand that this may be disappointing, but we need to be realistic about our capacity and resources at this time. Also, having recently held a demonstration outside the parliament in September with speakers and performances, we don’t feel it’s the most effective time to rerun an event of that kind. Instead, we will be having more in depth conversations with MSPs earlier in the week.
What can you do?
We would like to display some of the images from the digital campaign at both of the above activities, so please do take a look and get involved if you can.
Please also contact your MSPs as soon as you can and ask them to come along to our parliamentary event on 9th May, to hear about how they can support the ME community. Below is a link to a template email that you can copy and paste. Please add your experience of ME if you feel able to, it helps personalise the email and will have more of an impact on your MSP.
Who are your MSPs?
If you’re not sure who your MSPs are you can put your postcode into the They Work For You website to find out.
You will have eight MSPs who represent you – one constituency MSP and seven regional MSPs (don’t worry about your MP as it’s a Scottish Parliament event). It would be great if you could email as many of these MSPs as you can.
