Edmund (Jim) Aitkin-Ballard (Th 87) has started a new charitable venture, Coffee & Coping Hertfordshire.

“Coffee and Coping Hertfordshire was born from making the podcast 50 and Coping? on YouTube, which is a mental health and support show. Making that and meeting so many people involved in charities, as well as going on amazing adventures and looking deeply into addiction, we concluded that building community was a really important way of helping people. From a strong community base, people can succeed in getting well or just being a part of something meaningful. Once that realisation was made, I had to put my money where my mouth is as it were!

When we talk about community, WE see it as all inclusive, so no one feels alienated. In life we have exclusive communities, like sports communities and business communities etc., which feel a little estranged from inclusive. I’d like community to be seen as the people in the immediate area you live in giving and receiving support or signposting to real solutions.

This all harks back I suppose to my upbringing in the Somerset, a community in which you could usually trust your neighbours, and where no one felt the need to lock their doors. Times have changed and obviously security is so important but the need for companions hasn’t changed just like the need for help from people around you has always been there.

Our moto is Communitas vincit solotudinem. Which means community fights loneliness and I think that says it all!

Our partnership with Walking with the Wounded Charity gives us the ability to help veterans and their families using the new Op Courage government initiative. This gives veterans a constant ongoing source of guidance and empowerment, which is available to anyone who has served our country, either recently or in the past.

Our plans are to secure our charity number then expand all over Hertfordshire to make sure that loneliness and mental well-being are looked at properly, and that support hubs are provided to do so. This all takes time to build but already the responses from the Parish Council and indeed local businesses have been amazing, as well as having repeat members of our drop-in already!

We meet every Wednesday and Friday at 12:00 to 1:30pm at the Ashlea Room, Roydon Road, Stanstead Abbotts, attached to the Parish Hall!

Everyone is welcome and our staff, including the CEO, have level 2 counselling skills and are fully prepared to converse, signpost to help, or even just listen.”

www.coffeeandcoping.org

insta @cc.herts

facebook @coffeeandcopinghertfordshire

email: coffeeandcopingherts@gmail.com

Telephone for those not on the internet: 07990730188