Happy to Chat benches for Kintore and Blackburn aim to improve community wellbeing
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A community wellbeing initiative for Kintore and Blackburn has successfully come to fruition.
Residents will struggle to miss the brightly coloured Happy to Chat benches that have been installed.
Four have been placed in Kintore and two in Blackburn and their aim is to encourage people to sit and have a chat with whoever is next to them.
The idea was originally sparked during lockdown and the benches are designed to improve mental health and tackle social isolation.
Councillor Glen Reid has been involved with the project after he was approached by resident Alison Clark.
Councillor Reid said: "During lockdown, a local resident, Alison Clark, contacted me and made me aware of the buddy benches in England and expressed her thoughts that they would be nice to have in Kintore. I concurred and then set about making it happen.
"Our benches are designed to promote good mental health and tackle social isolation by talking and being outside.
"I put the proposal to the Garioch Community Planning Group and they thought that it was really good and decided to fund the initiative.
"I required a charitable partner so I approached Action Kintore's Rachel Lewis, who is their youth worker at The Bothy, and she was as keen as me to make this happen as all age groups suffer from mental health issues.
"In the spirit of keeping it local and working with organisations that promote good mental health and tackle social isolation, we approached The Westhill Men's Shed to see if they could build them for us.
"They were delighted to get involved, and with the funding that we had secured we could afford six benches to be built, four for Kintore and two for Blackburn.
"We wanted the benches to be 'owned' by the communities so we consulted with them over their locations and their colours and style.
"The locations were decided and the resounding thoughts on colour were bright and rainbow, which concurred with our thoughts.
"Aberdeenshire Council's landscape services team then collected them, built bases and installed them in their locations, and the reaction has been great.
"They brighten the place up, and hopefully they will help some people too."
The Westhill Men's Shed group were only too happy to get involved with the mental health support initiative
They built the benches and gave them their unmissable bright paint jobs.
New Shed chairman Marty Kehoe said: "Our Shed was delighted to be involved in this local mental health support project.
"We built and painted six benches and added a plaque on each which reads 'Please sit here if you're happy to chat'.
"The benches are also designed to be wide enough to allow for social distancing."
