June is Brain Injury Awareness Month in Canada, and the Brain Injury Alliance (Alliance) is celebrating by featuring stories of how Alliance funding is making a difference in the lives of people living with a brain injury in British Columbia. And, what amazing tales they are! Pictures and stories are available on the Alliance website (www.braininjuryalliance.ca).
The Brain Injury Alliance, composed of members from BC community non-profit brain injury associations, societies and agencies, was formed in 2014 with only two functions; to acquire and fairly distribute supplemental brain injury funding to help support community brain injury associations in BC.
The Alliance received three million dollars of funding from the government of British Columbia in May of 2015, to be distributed over three years. Then, in recognition of the importance of ongoing funding, and the benefit of the earlier funding, the government provided the Alliance with a further three million dollars, thereby ensuring funding until 2021.
The Brain Injury Alliance also administrates the Dr. Gur Singh Education Memorial Foundation, which was established with a million dollar donation from the Provincial Government in honour of Dr. Gur Singh, noted neurosurgeon and champion of those with an acquired brain injury. This funding provides organizations with the opportunity to run employment readiness programs, and provides individual’s with education and/or training funding to assist re-entry into the work environment following a brain injury. For more information about Dr. Gur Singh, and the available grants, please visit: www.drgursinghgrants.ca
There are an average of 22,000 serious new brain injuries per year in British Columbia, and it is estimated that over 180,000 British Columbians are currently living with the effects of a brain injury. The annual incidence of acquired brain injury in Canada is 44 times more common than spinal cord injuries, 30 times more common than breast cancer, and 400 times more common than HIV/AIDS. In fact, brain injury occurs at a rate greater than that of all known cases of Multiple Sclerosis, Spinal Cord Injury, HIV/AIDS and Breast Cancer per year combined.
For more information about the Brain Injury Alliance, and to read the wonderful stories about the benefit Alliance funding provides, please visit www.braininjuryalliance.ca, or contact the Alliance at contact@braininjuryalliance.ca
