Nature-based Community Calm celebrates 'massive' National Lottery funding boost

An organisation using nature to help vulnerable people is celebrating a ‘massive’ £20,000 donation from the National Lottery Community Fund.

Community Calm CIC, which operates mainly from a farm in Holyport, aims to support people living with mental health and mobility problems by helping them get back out into nature.

Since it was created little more than one year ago, scores of people in Windsor and Maidenhead have sought its service and it is hoped the lottery funding can help grow it further.

Founder Meena Kalsi, 49, said the funding had ‘opened up so many avenues for us’.

“It’s massive, absolutely massive,” she said.

“People may not think it’s a huge amount, but for small community groups like ours that have been surviving on donations, it is such a help.”

Community Calm members meet once a week at Holyport-based farm Heroes Berkshire, where they spend sessions entirely outdoors alongside farmyard animals.

The organisation also runs sessions at Windsor Great Park in collaboration with Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust (BBOWT).

The group’s members are referred to the service through health professionals including GPs, and have ranged from as young as 18 to 80.

Some are survivors of domestic abuse, some live with autism, while others live with physical disabilities that might otherwise prevent them from getting outside.

“Once people have finished clinical care, there’s nowhere for them to go to,” Ms Kalsi said.

“So, we can actually bridge that gap so that people can have a confidential space.

“A safe space, to help with their recovery and get back into the community.”

Activities at Community Calm include gardening, mindful animal care, and meditation – activities which its members, Ms Kalsi said, have feedback to be beof great help.

Ms Kalsi said she specialises in an Indian alternative medicine practice called Ayurveda. The treatment dates back thousands of years and focuses on balance and natural healing.

There are crossovers with the delicate equilibria found in the natural world.

Ms Kalsi said: “We have this very black and white way of thinking, in our lives and in our society, and when we look at traditional practices, it’s more looking at some of the grey areas.

“People who are on the neurodivergent scale, people coming to us who are autistic or on the spectrum – those grey areas are very important for them.”

With the National Lottery funding, Community Calm aims to help support the development of a ‘wellbeing garden’ in Slough’s Herschel Park.

Ms Kalsi said: “Since we’ve had the funding, it’s opened up so many different avenues for us.

“We can hopefully begin more sessions, we’ve got a campfire cookout at wildlife trust [BBOWT] at the end of this month – maybe more opportunities like that.

“We’ve also got the launch of a third site in Slough, I think it’s going to be the first wellbeing garden in Slough.

“It [National Lottery funding] opens up so many avenues for our members.”

More information about Community Calm can be found on its website at communitycalm.com.