Spotlight on Depression

Community safety

South Bay County of Los Angeles (select only if your project has a countywide benefit) City of Los Angeles (select only if your project has a citywide benefit) West LA

Pilot or new project, program, or initiative (testing or implementing a new idea)

DEPRESSION is the #1 disability in the US and the world.It cost the US $210 Billion a year in 2010. COVID caused a huge increase in the amount of people suffering.from depression in the US. In the years before Covid the common percentage sited was 6.8%. Now the estimate is at 8.3% After conceiving the project 8 years ago I went to schools and galleries to look for a home. I started with two well known Universities. One was paying out $700 million for sexual assaults by their gynecologist. The other was paying out $1.1 Billion for sexual assaults by their gynecologist. One would think the schools would jump to help be part of the solution. Neither school was interested! Another problem was curators saying "We do not accept outside ideas". Real progress also seems blocked by bureaucracy. Schools and institution grow to a size where bureaucracy takes over and it looks to preserve itself rather than improve the lives of those they serve. It was time to reduce size and go direct.

Spotlight on Depression at El Camino College will be anchored by the art exhibition KIEVA CAMPBELL: A Tribute to April Savino, the Sister I Never Met. Kieva and other artists who suffer from depression will have their art up for six months and will speak at various times.The art will be in the Art Gallery, The Anthro Museum, the Library, and the Social Justice Center. During the six months we will weave in poets, musicians , Politicos, Civil Rights people , NFL Football stars, Olympic medal winners in Track and Field.and others to present and begin to work on solving depression as a community..As an example of what has already been set up we have two NFL Stars, Erik Kramer, ex Detroit Lions QB and Sam Anno 1989 NFL Special Teams player of the year. Athletes tend to hide their depression. We have already arranged with the Football coach for Erik and Sam to talk to the team. Others we are bringing in. Dr Jonathan Flint, discovered the genetic link to Depression. Artists Jules Muck, Karen Hampton, Kim Anno, Miranda Kahn Gary Tyler, once the youngest on death row. He did not get depressed in Angola even though he had an execution date of May 1, 1976.We need to hear how he avoided depression. Poets Diane Lane of Get Lit,and other poets, Actor Dave Clennon,. We will spend a lot of time on Systemic Racism and depression and also DEI issues. Professor Okpala Comfort and civil rights activist Chaka Forman ,and ex Councilman Bonin. We will move this event around to other venues.

We are going to be working directly with people. We are not going to be doing page counts and counting followers. We expect the people presenting will make long term connections with each other and this will also extend into the audiences we hope to impact.We intend to keep this "Jimmy Carter" level small. He grew up around a community of 600 and when he left life he did massive works with villages just about that size.Size and bureaucracy are part of the problem and we think people will show up through the direct human attention shown using this smaller direct style.