People are always a bit skeptical when you say you are providing a service for free. What’s the catch? Why are we doing this? The founding trustee Wendy explains why.......
I started providing free Reiki and mindfulness many months ago to family and friends and I found this very fulfilling. It was a way of helping my friends relax, reduce pain levels and ease mental health worries. I considered a paid service but soon realised that many of the people who need this type of therapy the most, are the ones who cannot afford it. A typical 1 hour Reiki session may cost around the £40 mark and several sessions are recommended for full effect; an 8 week course of mindfulness based therapy can vary from £150 upwards.
I witnessed the positive effects on the mind, body and spirit of those that I treated and really wanted to extend this service to support overall mental health.
Discovering that there seems to be an epidemic of stress, depression and other mental health problems in the community that are deeply embedded and cause long term suffering was a concern. Waiting lists for mental health therapies are very long and medication used in isolation without these therapies is not as successful. Even if a person is not medicated there are a raft of therapies that can help support mental health and wellness as an early intervention before it reaches crisis point. Many people only go to the GP when they reach crisis. This needs to change and this has been recognised by the advent of social prescribing of non-medication options.
By making this a non-profit organisation and working towards charity status, ensures a long term commitment and legacy to the local communities around where I live. As a trustee I cannot earn money from this project. I give my time for free. But unfortunately there are costs associated with running a service like this and this is why we are raising crowdfunding and other fundraising activities.
( Photo by Chris Ensey on Unsplash)
