Patient Buddy Volunteer

Location: Royal Edinburgh Community Garden, Morningside, Edinburgh EH10 5HF.

Time: Volunteers can join on the days below within the mentioned hours.

• Thursday at 9:30am – 12:30pm
• Friday  at 1– 4pm.

We are flexible on how often you can volunteer, so just let us know your preferences.

What is a community garden?

At the Cyrenians’ Royal Edinburgh Community Garden, we endeavour to provide a beautiful, interesting and relaxing amenity space for patients, visitors, hospital staff and the larger community. We also run a range of structured services for patients in the garden, on the wards and use the well-maintained garden and its resources as a base. The gardens have a particular focus on welcoming people who are experiencing mental or physical health problems, disadvantage, isolation or poverty. 

What will you do as a volunteer?

Your support and encouragement could help someone to:

• Engage with a gardening session to benefit their physical / mental health.
• Relax and de-stress by spending some time in a ‘greenspace’.
• Reduce feelings of loneliness and isolation.
• Recover from the impact of Covid-19 (including feelings of isolation and anxiety).
• Increase self-confidence.
• Create links with the local community.
• Develop informal local support networks. 

A respect for the lived experience of individuals with mental health difficulties and their recovery process is essential to the role.

As a Buddy you will know that:

• Recovery from a severe mental illness is possible.
• Recovery means different things to different people.
• Recovery has its ups and downs.
• A person should be defined by their abilities, interests and dreams, rather than defined by their diagnosis or symptoms.

You can find more details about this volunteering opportunity in the decription below.