Four years ago, we started with an idea: that you could get a man talking about the thing he’s always needed to, but never had the space to, with nothing more than an empty room for him to walk into, and a community to support him. This idea gave birth to Space, an organisation that strives everyday to ensure men have somewhere to go, should they need it.
An organisation that Supports Men Suffering with Depression, Loneliness and Anxiety.
Then, our next challenge was to get men in the room, and we knew they wouldn’t all come to us, we had to go to them. Our mobile Coffee Space brought Space to workplaces all around the North East. Talking to men about what we do and reminded them of reasons to stay.
We drove that van to car parks, warehouses, building sites and factory floors right across the North East. No appointment, no form to fill in, just free coffee and a proper conversation, and a way in for men who would never normally put their hand up and ask for help.
It worked. Fifteen thousand men and women so far, and counting. Two thousand men came through our free six-day-a-week programme last year alone, and every one of them told us some version of the same thing: they felt less alone.
Tomorrow is World Suicide Prevention Day, and it feels like the right moment to tell you what’s coming this autumn.
We can’t share everything yet, but here’s what we can say. It involves a building on High Street West, a lot of genuinely excellent coffee, and a mission bigger than anything we’ve built before.
Men in this region die by suicide at a higher rate than anywhere else in England, and the gap isn’t close. For four years we’ve watched something as simple as a coffee and a conversation change that story for individual men, one at a time. What’s coming next is how we take that further.
A few things worth saying now, before anyone gets the wrong idea.
It won’t be a mental health café. We’ve built our reputation on reaching men who would never walk through the door of anything with those words on the sign, and this needs to work the same way. Somewhere you’d want to go for the coffee alone.
It won’t be just for men either. Everyone is welcome, every day. Whatever we build next has to work for the whole community, not only the people we’ve spent four years reaching.
And as far as we know, nothing quite like it exists anywhere else in the world.
Every penny it makes will go straight back into the support we already deliver for free, six days a week, and into taking that support beyond Sunderland and across the whole of the North East by 2030.
We’ve spent four years building something that works. Now we’re giving it a permanent home, and we couldn’t think of a better day to start telling you about it.
More details are coming soon. Follow us so you’re the first to know.
Follow Space on socials @spacenortheast and sign up below for updates.
If you need to talk to someone today, Samaritans are free on 116 123, any time, day or night. CALM’s helpline for men is free on 0800 58 58 58.
