A brave, brilliant, yet simple idea for cohesion
Maff Potts walked into our conference with a sofa over his shoulder. He went back to his van for another, then comfy chairs, standard lamps, beanbags, occasional tables, coloured lights, board games…
When he said he would create a living room we didn’t realise the scale of his vision – the social movement behind Camerados, the brave, brilliant, yet simple idea of enabling social cohesion by providing space to talk and connect. Each of us has the capacity to affect social isolation in a direct way by the simple act of relating to someone else – one thing in a conference setting and quite another when you take it onto the streets. Read about his remarkable journey so far (p6).
Having somewhere to call home; looking after our mental health and wellbeing – it’s about joining up the dots. Our coverage from Cranstoun’s social justice conference reflects things we spend our lives trying to fix – through collaboration we can have our ‘lightbulb’ moments. And we bring you the benefit of experience – Martin Blakebrough’s years at Kaleidoscope (p12) and Mark Gilman’s searching questions for drug treatment in the here and now (p24). Enjoy the issue!
Read the October issue as an online magazine (you can also download it as a PDF from the online magazine)
Claire Brown, editor