Swindon charity is 'safe haven' for those with poor mental health

Simon Mundy, who works at the Olive Tree Cafe, said: "The reason this place is so special is because it is my safe haven"

A mental health charity is helping dozens of people get back into work through its community cafe.

The Recovery Tree Charity - which runs a cafe and garden on the Cheney Manor estate in Swindon - helps people rebuild their lives after mental health crises.

Many of the cafe's 80 volunteers and 23 paid part time staff are living with mental health challenges.

Simon Mundy said it had provided a "safe haven" to him.

Mr Mundy, 47, was supervising a a kitchen shift in the Olive Tree Cafe inside the Manor Garden Centre when he spoke to BBC Radio Wiltshire.

He suffered a breakdown in his 20s.

"I wouldn't ever be able to get a full time job due to my mental health problems," he said.

Cafe manager, Phyllida Richards, said they try to ensure people can "lead a meaningful and fulfilling life with includes work and a social life"

He said the cafe and Twigs Community Garden has "made a massive difference, it's somewhere for me where I can actually feel safe, it's somewhere I love to come".

As well as helping those recovering from mental illness, the Recovery Tree also supports adults with a range of mental difficulties.

"I used to work in a bank where I lost my job," said new recruit Nick, who has Down's syndrome.

"My favourite thing here is being on the till."

Phyllida Richards, the cafe manager, said they try to ensure people can "lead a meaningful and fulfilling life with includes work and a social life" without their mental health struggles becoming "all-consuming".

"Mental health is something that doesn't go away," she said.

"A lot of people live with a mental health condition for the whole of their lives.

"We have people who started doing wash up and are now running shifts, other people might move on to get a job somewhere else."

She said neither the Twigs garden nor the Olive Tree Cafe would have been able to function without the support of the longstanding charitable arm of Swindon employer Zurich.

As well as helping those recovering from mental illness, the cafe also supports adults with a range of mental difficulties

Under its former names, Allied Dunbar and Hambro Life, the firm's Community Trust pioneered the notion of large companies helping their local communities.

While the idea is commonplace in the corporate world nowadays, the Swindon example was one of the first in the country - the Zurich Community Trust marks its 50th anniversary on New Year's Eve.

"It was very much the brainchild of a remarkable man, Baron Joel Joffe, to set up a charitable foundation to give back to the local community," said the Trust's head, Steve Grimmett.

The late Labour peer Baron Joffe moved to Swindon from his native South Africa where he'd been Nelson Mandela's defence attorney, and was a founding member of the insurance firm which would later become Zurich.

"What's really important to us is working with those small grass roots organisations where the investment we can make with time skills and money will make such a huge difference," Mr Grimmett said.