The marketplace took place on: Friday 16th May, 11am-3pm, at Kirkgate Market.On Friday 16th May, during Mental Health Awareness Week, over 35 charities and community groups from across Leeds came together for a marketplace event all about mental health and wellbeing support.
Hosted by voluntary sector organisations Touchstone and Forum Central, the event focused on spotlighting organisations and smaller community groups that support marginalised and culturally diverse communities. To mark this year’s Mental Health Awareness Week theme ‘community’, the marketplace provided a one-stop-shop for people from diverse communities to access support from grassroots organisations that understand their needs.
The event, held in Kirkgate Market, saw huge footfall, bringing together people from across Leeds to connect with friendly staff and learn about the kinds of local support on offer.
Sharon Brown, Touchstone’s Director of Strategic and Business Partnerships says:
“Mental Health Awareness Week is an important date in the Touchstone calendar and we are proud to have marked it by hosting such a successful event with our close colleagues at Forum Central. From our more than 40 years supporting diverse and marginalised communities with their mental health, we understand how important it is that services are accessible, visible, and responsive to those communities. We hope that by bringing organisations and groups together in one place in events like these, we can help to reduce the barriers many people face in seeking the support they need.”
Pip Goff, Director of Volition (Volition co-manages the city-wide online resource MindWell and is lead delivery partner of Forum Central) comments:
“This year’s Mental Health Awareness Week theme of ‘community’ is something that Forum Central passionately believes makes a difference to people’s lives and mental wellbeing. There is such brilliant support available from a wide range of community, lived experience and value-led groups and charitable organisations but lots of people don’t know what’s on their doorstep. This event brilliantly showcased community-led activity and approaches to mental health support. We’d like to encourage people to reach out, maybe go outside of your comfort zone to get involved and find a community that suits you – there are group listings on MindWell if you couldn’t make it along to this event.”
The marketplace took place on: Friday 16th May, 11am-3pm, at Kirkgate Market.
