A new garden in Porthmadog is providing an oasis of calm for people with mental health problems.
It’s been created over the past five weeks by a team from Coleg Harlech WEA as part of an Intermediate Labour Market project to help participants escape the dole queue.
They have transformed the rundown land which belongs to Hafal, a charity working with people with mental health issues.
The organisation could not afford to turn the messy and overgrown space into a place for service users to relax but Coleg Harlech came to the rescue.
According to Chris Eastwood, the Vice Chair of Hafal, everyone is overjoyed with the new garden.
Mr Eastwood said: “Coleg Harlech have been kind enough to send in some work placement people who have transformed our garden from what was a pretty unsightly mess into a low maintenance and very enjoyable space.
“We’re very happy with Coleg Harlech. We at Hafal wouldn’t have had the budget to do it.”
The 54 year old was diagnosed as being bipolar 20 years ago. He said the condition ruined his career but he’s found peace in Hafal’s garden. “It’s a nice place to be and it’s beautiful up here. We can enjoy the view and we can chat and it’s just a haven of sanity in an otherwise mad world.”
The garden has been built in three tiers and has to be low maintenance so the people who access it can keep on top of it.
One level is a sanctuary for smells and aims to promote a feel good factor. The next one is going to be a teaching area where people can run through woodworking skills or flower arranging and the top one is going to be a BBQ area.
The people working on the ILM project are paid by the college as they take part in the European funded scheme which is designed to get people retrained and back into sustainable work.
Pitra Lundy, the Project Manager on the ILM programme, said it’s proved a big hit.
She said: “We’ve had a lot of success in getting people back to work. They feel lacking in confidence, they feel that they’ve been out of work for so long that nobody would want them and we remind them that they have got skills, they can learn new skills and they’re never too old to learn.
“Here in Hafal they’re doing work which thye couldn’t afford to pay a contractor to do but the standards are of an industry standard. ”
Over the last 18 months, 70 people have been employed on the ILM’s Environmental Project and the college’s target is to get 56 per cent of them into sustainable work.
Steve Brown has been a Job Coach on Coleg Harlech’s programme for the past nine months after initially participating on the 12-week-scheme. He said it changed his life “tremendously” and taught him a lot.
“You’ve got to be willing to diversify. You cannot just stick to one field now, you’ve got to do different things. People leave here knowing that they could be joiners, they could be plumbers and they’re willing to train up to get that employment.
“I’m a great believer that if you give a guy a hammer he can make a chair and if he can make a chair he can sit there and contemplate what he’s going to do next,” he added.
Nineteen-year-old Elen Owen, from Tywyn, has been working on Hafal’s gardening project two days a week.
She said: “I’ve learnt that I can do a lot of things that I didn’t think I could do. I’ve used an axe and a chisel. I’m glad I’ve done it.”
In September she’s going to University in Manchester to study Biology but says she has enjoyed the work.
“It’s great to be able to say that I was active and I got up and did something and I feel good about it. It’s been very fulfilling.”
Chima Cureton, from Blaenau Ffestiniog, has learnt new skills during his time on the project.
“While I’ve been here I’ve done a lot of painting, worked on the slabbing, we’ve taken benches back to Coleg Harlech and we’ve been refurbishing them. We erected the shed and we’ve made the place look a whole lot better.
“It’s good seeing it now. It’s tidier and cleaner and the type of place you’d want to be now. The service users are well impressed and we get great comments from them.”
Chima believes Coleg Harlech’s helped him as much as he’s helped them.
“It’s very hard for people like myself to get a job especially when you’ve had no experience before and knowing you can put this down on your CV, knowing you’ve learnt new skills is great,” he added.
WCVA Chief Executive Graham Benfield OBE said: “The Intermediate Labour Market (ILM) project is supporting around 1,500 economically inactive people into permanent jobs across North and East Wales, while boosting the skills and work-based qualifications of over 3,000 people in total.
“Interventions like these are vital in the current climate’.
“The Intermediate Labour Market (ILM) is a scheme funded by the Welsh Assembly Government and European Structural Funds (European Social Fund), and managed by Wales Council for Voluntary Action (WCVA), the umbrella body for the third sector in Wales.”
For more information go to: www.harlech.ac.uk
