A GROUP set up to support vulnerable and isolated men in west Wales is going from strength to strength,

Men2men aims to engage with an increasingly isolated community of men, across all age ranges, who are becoming more depressed, cut off and in some cases suicidal.

It is funded by Hywel Dda Health Board and the Welsh Government and is being developed just for men, by men.

It has been set up by community trainer, group worker and therapist Fred Luckman alongside Luke Conlon and Pete Colling who are both very well-known and highly experienced in the third sector.

"Over the last few weeks, men2men has engaged and are training a number of enthusiastic and skilled volunteers," said Fred.

"We have developed further our online and face to face services to enable us to operate during the current lockdown period.

"Where possible we will meet men outside face to face, who really have no other social contact. It holds them well until we can feed them into our other activities. This human contact has proved crucial for the isolated men we have so far met."

Fred added that small face to face, group activities that will be socially distanced outside or in large workshop space, will begin.

The group currently offers face to face individual support meetings with the men2men core team as well as small group walk and talk activities and small group socially distanced workshop activities.

Online it provides one to one weekly support sessions, with the core team and trained buddies, online men's weekly closed support groups and an online Food Buddies group

Future plans for developing a substantial men's shed in the Cardigan area (Cardi Shed) are advancing well. A number of other activity workshops are planned, from photography workshops to outdoors woodlands crafts, these will start once the group has clearer guidance from Public Health Wales,

For more information on the support offered see www.men2men.org.uk or ring

Fred Luckman on 07577117967 or Luke Conlon on 0790886001.