Story 10
‘The Nest’ – Safe Sharing, Connecting Circles
For almost three years ‘The Nest” have been holding weekly ‘free-to-attend’ Men’s Brotherhood & Women’s Sisterhood ‘Safe Sharing Circles’ benefiting upwards of 15 people at anytime. During lockdown – after a tussle with the local council and police – the organisers managed to secure ‘exempt’ status from the lockdown rules and were then fortunately able to continue with their safe outdoor space circles – allowing men and women to feel seen, heard and listened to, and supported. Unsurprisingly, the project organisers report of increased community need during the pandemic for wellbeing and socially connecting support and for this to be provided in a natural outdoors setting, and there are now more and more people wanting to come together to tackle their loneliness, social isolation, any addictions, depression and suicidal thoughts.
As co-founder River Ki Taylor explains:
“ Everyone who attends our ‘ Safe Sharing Circles’ benefits in some way or other. By attending they share their issues and problems, and when we listen to other people’s real life experiences and stories, it helps immeasurably to understand our own life with more clarity. My wife and I decided to use our home and garden to create the space due to our own personal life experiences, struggles and illness. We feel honoured to be able to now be of service to others – and in a spirit of creating a compassionate community – by using our experiences to help others.
It’s a delight, especially during lockdown and in a time of recovery, to see what we can continue to do and we look forward to bringing so much more support to the local community, and offering people multiple holistic wellbeing services from our already formed groups of experienced and highly trained therapists, facilitators and practitioners.”
The Nest is currently situated in the founder’s garden, and they have run out of space! They are looking to develop their mutual aid and support project to meet identified increased social, health and personal needs. They are actively engaged in a campaign to secure more land to develop their social and wellbeing project, and looking for funding, partners and other resources too.
For further information, contact River Ki Taylor: riverkitaylor@gmail.com