Billy Daniel Bunter - London to Amsterdam bike ride.

After 18 months of putting together an amazing team and working relentlessly on pages and pages of documents. We were rewarded with our charity number, and Safe Space Movement is now an officially registered Mental Health charity.

On receiving our charity number. I have taken on the challenge as a fund raising volunteer to raise £10 000 via the London to Amsterdam 5 day bike ride.

So far with the personal money I have put in to the charity, and the money raised via other fund raisers and raffles. We are almost there to have the funds to officially launch our full phone line service and be able to run for our 1st 6 months.

I currently need to raise another £10 000 for us to launch properly without any financial strain, and be able to help people in need with our team of mental health 1st aiders at the other end of the phone.

Please note, I will also use this page to raise money via raffles as well.

What we have achieved so far

We are now a Registered Charity with the Registered Charity Number 1197649.

Set up the charity as a Company Ltd by Guarantee with Companies House.

Appointed our trustees.

Opened our bank account.

Successfully put 14 people through their Mental Health First Aid Training and have raised the funds to train many more of our volunteers.

Come so far in our understanding of the type of charity we want to be, our structure, vision, mission and goals.

Written our Year One Business and Service Delivery Plan.

Written our Governing Document.

Chosen our CRM and phone system.

Working closely with Community Action Network who are advising and assisting us every step of the way with the business and legal side of the charity.

Members of the Small Charities Coalition and NCVO (National Council for Voluntary Organizations). These are national charitable organizations set up to help with the set up and running of a charity

Working with our team of advisors who we consult from a service delivery perspective. They are all specialists in their field from a policy writer, safe-guarding expert, certified mental health first aid trainer, psychologist, to housing and addiction specialists.

Creating the training courses required for the services we want to provide.

Launched our full website with a team of designers, coders and content writers.

Have an accountant who specializes in Charity accounting.

It’s been 18 months of learning, and getting an incredible team together. Every day we gain more knowledge and get closer to fully launching our service. Dedicated to giving mental health support to those in need.

We could not have come this far without your donations, and offers of support and help. We cannot thank you all enough.

If you would like to find out more. Please check out our website https://www.safespacemovement.co.uk/

All donations received will go towards

Provision of certified Mental Health First Aid Training for all volunteers in client facing roles, advisors and management.

Installation of phone lines and equipment associated with the provision of this service.

Website/subscription costs.

General expenses.

Disclosure and Barring checks for all volunteers in client facing roles/handling sensitive information.

Expenses for the London to Amsterdam bike ride.

Our Vision

To see a world where everyone has a safe space to find common ground within our society, understand they are not alone and find that support is available every step of the way.

Our Mission

To eradicate the stigma associated with mental health and asking for help so that everyone can get the right support they need, when they need it. To extinguish feelings of loneliness and isolation from whomever is experiencing it.

Why I created The Safe Space Movement

On the 15th July 2020, my Mum phoned me distressed and crying. I knew something terrible had happened. My 24-year-old nephew “Calvin” was found dead, hanging in his home. Calvin was a handsome, intelligent, empathetic, strong young man. He had a fantastic job, nice car, always out having fun. Everyone looked up to Calvin. He was the brother and friend everyone would go to for advice on their life problems. He was the person always there to help.

The following day his family and friends organised a massive meet up to celebrate his life. He was into his cars and quad bikes and was a much-loved popular figure within the car and quad bike “meet up” community. The sheer amount of people who turned up to mourn and celebrate his life was overwhelming. In his short time living his life he had inspired, was loved and looked up to by so many people. Not a single person out of the 100’s and 100’s gathered could work out how such an amazing, strong young man could have taken his life. The pressures of bills, depression, life amidst Covid 19 had become too much for this beautiful young man, and he just didn’t reach out to anyone. The irony that so many people had turned up to show their respects, who loved and admired him. Everyone of them would have been there to help.

At the same time, I had found myself and my business that I had dedicated my life to for 30 years come under attack online by a hate group and website. Spreading lies and misinformation, it hurt seeing complete fabrications written about myself, my partner, and our organisation. As we started to investigate, we realised a number of people in our industry had come under attack by the same group. Some of them had found themselves in a vulnerable place, depressed, and suicidal. We had to help.

Cyber bullies can literally get away with murder. Hiding behind IP addresses, and fake accounts, almost impossible to track down. Waiting in the wings to attack and hurt people. Eventually the cyber bullies slipped up. We had built up evidence of 100’s and 100’s of pages of bullying, lies and hate to present to the police, and the culprits’ bosses at work. We helped several people to grow in confidence and stand up to the cyber bullies who had been playing with their mental health for far too long.

No matter how hard things are, someone is always there to listen. Just reach out.

Daniel Light (Billy Daniel Bunter)