As the world celebrated International Men’s Day last weekend (Saturday 19 November), it gives us an opportunity to shine the light on The Health Tree project, which is all about supporting men.
International Men’s Day is important as it applauds the positive impact that men bring to the world, their families and communities. This year’s theme “Helping Men and Boys” couldn’t be more fitting as that is the focus of The Health Tree project in Tower Hamlets.
In September we announced how the Care Group alongside St Margaret's House, Social Action for Health and Voicebox Theatre won funding from the Social Prescriber’s Innovator’s Programme to support a truly creative partnership called the Men’s Project.
So, how does The Health Tree project support men? Stuart Cox, Arts and Wellbeing Director/Deputy CEO (St Margaret's House), explained:
“We found that the number of men we had been engaging was much lower than women, although when they did engage, they had positive experiences. We found these figures played out for men in social prescribing engagement nationally too. This inspired our partnership to find creative ways to engage men in conversation and to find out about their experience of social prescribing and how we could co create with them projects that they would like to see.
“We work with men in Tower Hamlets by addressing health inequalities creatively through everything from walks, theatre workshops, acupuncture, woodwork, fitness and social prescribing."
“We continue to engage with and create coproduction activities with men who live locally.”
