Dan Biggs looks at the camera smiling in a black and white headshot black and white headshot. Photo Credit Nigel Brunsdon. [[link removed]]
Photo Credit: Nigel Brunsdon
Please submit nominations for the Dan Bigg Any Positive Change award at the National Harm Reduction Coalition conference by September 9, 2022 !
Dan Bigg taught us that asking permission is less important than doing what is right. He co-founded and directed the Chicago Recovery Alliance, but his influence was felt beyond Chicagoland. In the mid-nineties, he began handing out naloxone – the “pure antidote” for opioid overdose – to people who use drugs to empower them to save each other’s lives. Dan would show up at conferences with duffel bags of naloxone, giving others the chance to bring the lifesaving medicine home to their own communities, and inspiring countless programs in the United States and around the world.
Dan’s work was not limited to naloxone. He found a way to do mobile methadone delivery despite the barriers; he traveled across the globe in search of affordable hepatitis C treatment for those who needed it; he was an early pioneer of syringe access and implementing lay vaccination for hepatitis A/B during outreach; and he was working on developing drug checking resources for people who use drugs.
He didn’t wait for policymakers to come around to his ideas – he just did it. Dan didn’t believe in rules, regulations or laws that stood in the way of people’s survival, and he urged us all to ignore - or at the very least creatively interpret - them too.
Dan’s oft-repeated mantra of “Any Positive Change” truly summarizes his deep belief in the resilience and power of people to enact change, to establish and maintain autonomy over their bodies and lives. Dan inspired generations of harm reductionists to not give up when things seemed incredibly difficult, when it seemed that the odds were stacked against us all. Any positive change, he would say. Over and over.
In Dan’s spirit and to continue his and his Chicago Recovery Alliance family legacies, we have created this award for bold, radical harm reductionists who are creating positive change despite the odds – working in difficult environments, finding innovative and creative ways to get people the services they need, and advancing programs that center the voices and needs of people who use drugs. We encourage you to nominate people or collectives who you think fit this description.
Louise Vincent was the inaugural awardee. Louise is the executive director of NC Survivors Union and is also on the Leadership Team of the Urban Survivors Union, a national organization of former and active drug users who have come together to provide services for their communities. Upon receiving the award, Louise said, “He was one of the people who I could tell the whole story to- I didn’t have to leave parts out- because I am a person who uses drugs and he wanted to see me be able to do the things that we need to do to fight, he wanted to remove the struggles that were getting in the way. And that is what we have to do for folks.”
At the inaugural award ceremony, Karen Stanczykiewicz-Bigg, Dan’s wife and Chicago Recovery Alliance team member gave some background, “He made things fun whenever possible- mostly because he loved this work. He loved people and he had fun packing boxes of naloxone, writing a grant, doing outreach- these were all fun. These are all qualities made Dan great. I aspire to them every day, and most of you share these qualities also: the risk taking, hardworking, loving, generous, kind people all here today [at the 2018 NHRC conference], valuing human worth and dignity, building relationships to make it happen every day.”
The person or collective that you nominate (deadline: September 9, 2022) must be affiliated with a US-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit (or have a qualifying fiscal sponsor- but even if you’re not sure, we can help find a fiscal sponsor). At each National Harm Reduction Conference, we will choose one recipient whose organization/collective will receive an award of $15,000. However, the intended vision for this award is not for supplies or to balance shoestring organizational budgets. It’s for back pay for all the personal dollars spent, reimbursement for so many uncovered miles driven for outreach. It’s for catching up on student loan/rent/bills, back-to-school clothes for kids, massages and pizza parties, or whatever makes the awardee(s) feel comforted, celebrated, and appreciated.
Due to conflicts of interest from selection committee members and the host organization, people from the National Harm Reduction Coalition, Remedy Alliance/For The People, North Carolina Survivors Union, and the Chicago Recovery Alliance are not eligible to receive the award.
Information needed to complete nominations
Please use this link [[link removed]] to submit your nomination by September 9, 2022 . Below is the info you will need to fill out.
About the person making the nomination
Name
Contact details (email, telephone)
Relationship to the person/organization you are nominating (colleague, friend, etc.)
Length of time you have known the nominee
About the nominee
Name
Organization
Position
Contact details (email, telephone)
Please give a brief description of the person you’re nominating and their organization (Max 200 words)
Please say why you think they fit the description of someone who does what is right to help and empower people who use drugs, even when it’s difficult (Max 200 words)
*
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