HELP FOR YOU
Perhaps you have visited the POWER ABUSED website because of a personal problem, one faced by you or a friend or loved one, which appears to involve gender bias. Besides trying to eliminate such discrimination from "the system", MERGE and allied organizations in Edmonton exist to help individuals in those situations. As a volunteer group without public funding, we are limited in the help we can give. But we can provide some assistance, especially the information we have gathered over time, and the moral support of those who have "been there" before.
To tell us in confidence about your situation, we urge you to contact us by clicking on the e-mail link at bottom, or else to phone one of the persons listed below as being in charge of MERGE and its special committees. Alternatively, in or near Edmonton you can phone the Men's Help Line, which has men and women volunteers on call seven days a week. The Men's Help Line provides information to persons of either sex who are dealing with problems most often faced by men, and is operated by men and women volunteers from MERGE and like-minded groups.
Perhaps the particular help you wish is for your personal story of gender-based injustice to be told to the public, or else to officials in positions of power. (Making such stories available to the public is a major purpose of this website.) The publicising of such accounts has several valuable purposes: to help bring about action for those who have suffered injustice; to achieve some closure for those for whom that is too late; and to catalyze reforms in "the system" by exposing problems in society of which the public has not been adequately aware. If for any of these reasons you desire your own story to be told--this can be done anonymously, disguising details which would identify you, if need be--just contact us.
Whatever sort of assistance you desire, we urge you to get in touch with us.
MERGE special committees:
Committee on Injustice by Police and Prosecutors
Abdulah Mahamad, Chair ...........................................................(780) 488-0459
Committee on Injustice in Social Work
Shannon Stachnik, Chair .............................................................(780) 450-1129
Committee on Injustice by Judges and Lawyers
Dan Mason, Chair .......................................................................(780) 483-3372
For general information on MERGE:
Ferrel Christensen, President ........<ferrel.christensen@ualberta.ca>, 488-4593