Communities Mental Health & Wellbeing Fund
Year 1 Awardee
Kadampa Meditation Centre
Social Café Project

About the project
Our meditation centre is a peaceful, warm and welcoming community where everyone is welcome to learn and practice simple and effective meditations to create inner peace and contentment and to give them skills for better mental health and problem solving. We are applying to the fund primarily to support the training of volunteers to work in the cafe, together with the training and part time salary of someone to run the cafe within the Centre and manage the reception area. Their primary role will be the day-to-day running of our community cafe as well as to man the reception area daily so that the main doors can be open to the centre to allow people to drop in - significantly widening our accessibility as we currently have only one full time staff member. They will also organise special community meal & meditation events and to co-ordinate/train volunteers who want to become more involved in the Centre. We believe that through these activities we can Although we have only been based in Aberdeen a short time, and during a pandemic, we have been able already to work in partnership with several organisations, including AIMS (MS Society) offering regular meditation classes online, MISS (Miscarriage support service) offering several workshops, ABSAFE training their staff in meditation techniques, and as things open up from the pandemic and the centre's capacity grows we hope to reach more local organisations.
Type of initiative funded: Social
Key priority area: Social isolation and loneliness
Funding awarded: £5000