The men's group, run in partnership with Re-Act Refugee Action Scotland offers support to refugee men and is part of our Safe Haven project.  This weekly group provides a safe space to help men who have fled their home country to adjust to life in Scotland, offering weekly activities, workshops and cultural excursions.  

Most recently, the men started to take part in a weekly mental well-being project called 'The Changing Room', run at Tynecastle stadium by Dougie Gowan from SAMH. Dougie said: "The underlying premise to our sessions are the '5 ways to better mental health and wellbeing'. Using these, we aim to use activities and presentations to help participants to recognise that they can help themselves and each other to reduce isolation and better manage their mental wellbeing".

Activities have included and will include a football quiz, stadium tour covering Hearts' history, walking football, touch rugby, cooking and gardening. It took a while for the men to get used to the pace of 'walking football', but here is one of Dougie's post match reports:

Venue: Stad Jacque Caine

*Score: SyrSel – 11: IntSel -  10

Following last month’s tumultuous tussle at Tynecastle, the Syrian Select triumphed in Monday night’s return leg at a rain soaked 'Stad Jacque Caine'.

Disappointingly, Dougie once again lost count of the *score, but readily conceded that the young Syrian Select fielded in the return leg ran out comfortable victors.

Commenting after the match, Dougie said "we were caught out in the first quarter by the silky skills of Waleed, who had been promoted to the first team in the place of Rami who was missing due to injury. Once the match settled, we got a tactical grip and hauled them back to just one goal down and kept it tight until half time.  But with some player changes at the break, the game got really stretched in the 2^nd half as a couple of the International Select side ran out of puff”.

With this reporter being granted unique access to the post match cuppa, there was agreement that the double-header had been a worthwhile exercise before a deeper discussion on the benefits of exercise, government tax policy, NHS and employment opportunities for skilled Syrian men. 

© Changing Room Reporter, Dougie Gowan, November 2019.