Why I Love Rotherham Flourish - Juliet McDonald

There are small miracles happening at Mowbray Gardens Library. On Friday mornings a group of people gather. Pretty ordinary people with pretty ordinary lives. If you passed them in the street you probably wouldn’t look twice at them.

But underneath these unassuming exteriors, are people who are turning their lives around. People who have suffered grief, anxiety, depression, isolation. Experiences that may have left them with shattered self-confidence.

Together they are forming a cohesive, supportive medley of personalities who understand and have compassion for each individual’s unique experience of mental health problems.

This is taking place through the creative process of expressing thoughts and emotions through poetry writing, short story writing and art.

It sounds simplistic.  It is in actual fact a complex amalgamation of everybody’s words, laughter, tears, happiness, sadness, growing confidence, anger, regret, those myriad emotions that make us human beings.

Together they are learning to have confidence in their abilities, they are discovering talents they didn’t even know they had. They are learning that there are compassionate, understanding people right here in our own community.

They are flourishing one little miracle at a time.

Writing by Juliet McDonald
Art by David Fletcher