Giving Tuesday is a day of giving that was started in the US and follows Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Cyber Monday. It is, however, gathering popularity in the UK and this year on the 29th of November an estimated 4.5 million people across the UK did something to support a good cause whether donating money, fundraising, volunteering time or talking to friends and family about the work of charities. 

Our own contribution to Giving Tuesday, 'Scotland is my home', was the first campagin we had ever run and, as such, proved to be a success both in terms of raising funds and awareness of the work we do. It centered around a service user, Abijah (not her real name), aged 12, who had travelled to Scotland from North Africa with her parents and younger siblings. The journey to Scotland had been traumatic and Abjah was lost in the family's stress. She joined one of the gruops at MCFB and began to make friends and could talk about her worries and how much she missed her home country and said that the gruop had made a 'huge difference' to her.

We teamed up with local businesses, Ostara, Bikecraft and Downes Opticians, who helped to promote the campaign by hosting collection buckets and displaying posters and were able to raise just over £380 via cash and online donations. Awareness of MCFB was also given a boost by increased 'likes' and shares on our facebook page, which has encouraged us to run more campaigns in the future.  The funds raised will be used to support more people like Abijah with therapeutic group work.