Dedicated WD support site in Dutch

[Claudius]

I feel very warm-hearted to IAWP and am still thinking about offering WD support in the Netherlands in a more central guided way. I have published a lot on some Dutch fora, have definately put many many people on the right tracj to tapering and still emails on a regluar base from eeople who have read my posts, feel I am amongs the best informed people in the Netherlands and ask for my support.

I try to help them as good as I can, but I have to tell different people the same things over and over again, type my fingers blue from things I type hunderd of tiimes before and therefore I would like to have is somewhere in a central way where I can refer to articles, letters, tapering schedules etc.
Of course I could found my own website but this will be a pretty big investment in time were I still need to schedule my time carefully during the still ongoing waves.

Besides I tend to think that we can better consolidate our knowledge and experience in a limited number of well guided websites to avoid scattering of knowledge and generating too much small and hard-to-find support sites.
Until now, we have PaxilProgress (which has also a lot of refugees, including myself), Surviving Antidepressants and IAWP as the three main support sites worldwide.
But all those sites are in English though I refer many times to the Dutch part (translated by me) on IAWP and got many positive reactiones about that. But it remains a static part of the site.
What I still miss is a good forum in Dutch which could act as the main support base for Dutch speaking people. I wonder whether it is a good idea to interate is somehow in IAWP or make it a separate project. Of course a "Dutch cafe" could be added easliy to the existing forum but this will always have some "addon" feeling...
Any ideas?

[Luc]

Hey, Claudius! We're very happy you want to do something in connection with us.

Starting a Dutch café looks like a great idea. When it’s ready, we could then see what ways of expanding it would be the best. Technically, it is possible to add sub-sub-forums to the Dutch café no problem and grow it into something bigger.

If you had some other ideas for this format, let us know about it. How do you imagine it, what you would like to add, and so on. Together, we’ll surely create something that will work well.

Props to you for spreading the word and helping others who suffer so much and who would never be able to get their lives back, wasn’t it for the info you share with them. You are saving people's lives and it's no exaggeration. Fantastic. Not to mention the fact that being active, helping others, sharing the info helps in the recovery process immensely – I know it myself.

Together, step by step, we will be able to replace the current, dysfunctional system for the better one, the one that should be here in the first place.

[Sheila]

Claudius – We’re thrilled that you are suggesting some sort of Dutch addition to IAWP.

What do you think about the idea of starting with an “enhanced” Dutch café with sub-sub-forums like Tapering, Journals, Media, Coping?

So many Dutch people speak English that it seems like our Dutch visitors could benefit from both the Dutch café and the rest of the forum in English.

Remember, we have “International” in our name. You could add some text to the static pages that explained to people how to get to the Dutch sub-forum, so that they would not arrive at the forum and think it is only in English.

If it became unwieldy or grew too much, and you were still interested, we could then consider building another separate forum or something like that.

This also makes me think that it might be a good idea to enhance the other foreign language cafes and create more things like tapering guidelines and collect media in the language. Parox has started spontaneously to do that by collecting some wonderful videos on antidepressants and on spirituality.

You have done really excellent, noble work on your own, and it would be delightful to work more with you here. We have known you for a long time, and we trust you.

[Barbara]

Hey There Claudius,

What a good idea and thank you for suggesting it! You have made real progress with your letters to GSK and your overall involvement with WD in your country. I look forward to seeing where all this will lead.