Hands-on work heals the mind
Charlie is bringing men together to lift their lives.
Last Christmas the Linwood Resource Centre was closed but Charlie Hulbert opened the Menz Shed anyway during the non-stat days. He sensed it was needed.
He told the guys, no power tools, just hand tools, come along have a cuppa. And four men who were alone at home did.
This is what Charlie’s Menz Shed is about. It’s not what the woodworking tools create, it is about people coming together in positive ways and all the good mental health/health benefits that flow from social connections.
The men create their own pieces, plus build community projects like benches and planter boxes, while sharing enthusiasm and knowledge.
The Menz Shed is one example of the help we give Christchurch people beyond our Hereford Street headquarters. Some staff like Charlie are based in the middle of communities and they work hard to help people right where they live.
Charlie joined us in September last year and he has brought new, exciting and innovative plans. He says the Menz Shed is all about boosting mental health and building resilience. Meanwhile the planter boxes are a double win because of the mental health/ health benefits to the recipients from gardening and growing food or flowers. Working with the hands, working with earth – these are grass roots ways to lift lives.
Charlie is no stranger to the City Mission. He was working on placement with our Alcohol and Other Drug team at Hereford Street many years ago before a career as an AOD clinician at Hillmorton Hospital.
Before that he ran charters around Banks Peninsula on a wooden boat. There he honed his practical and people management skills, and also gained important insights that help him in his work at the Menz Shed.
He recalls how his boat trips were very hands on for passengers because he wanted to give people an experience of being very much in the moment.
“When you’re on the water you can’t be thinking about that bill you’ve got to pay or all your issues. People were making their own teas and coffees, I might have five people pulling the anchor up by hand, others looking out for dolphins, others keeping an eye on those swimming, some fishing off the boat … and what I found was people then took ownership of their experience on the water. They had to focus and be in the present and work together.”
“And I started to get comments from people … one guy came on and he said, ‘I’ve been on every charter boat in Sydney Harbour and this blows the whole lot out of the water’.”
People working together, social connection, individual growth, selfconfidence – these things work and that’s why Charlie opens his shed doors and says to his community “let’s go to work together”.