NDMDA to host speaker

By Amy Julian

Unity in Diversity year continues tonight with a speaker who wants to get people who suffer from manic depression involved in the year.

Ron Schwartz, legal council for the National Depressive and Manic Depressive Association, will speak to NIU’s newly forming NDMDA chapter at 7 p.m. in the Holmes Student Center.

Schwartz will bring information about the national group and what it has done for him, said group coordinator Sue Senteney.

This illness hits people of all ages and races, Senteney said.

There are chapters of the NDMDA in every state and in Canada, Enlgland and the Netherlands, she said. The NIU chapter will attempt to educate interested people about the illness, she said.

The NIU chapter also might produce a newsletter if there is enough interest in the group to receive funding, she said.

“I wanted Northern to have a group where people weren’t afraid to tell about it (manic depression),” she said. “It’s important to know that it’s not as scary as the title says it is.”