A peer-led recovery community

Edited transcript from the Recovery Cymru film.

Hello, my name is Keely and I work for Recovery Cymru. Here at Recovery Cymru we promote hope. Through our paid workforce, we inspire others through our knowledge and understanding as a result of our own recovery journeys.

We are a safe and non-judgemental space for people to come, speak and feel heard. We truly believe that everybody has the potential to recover.

Here at Recovery Cymru, we empower our members to be the best they can be. We do not just listen to our members, we hear what they have to say, what they want for themselves and what they want their lives to look like. We help them take steps to achieve this.

One of the things we do is empower people by guiding them through recovery, instead of doing the work for them. This helps them identify the life they want to lead, giving them hope, meaning and optimism.

We promote meaning and identity by encouraging members to engage in groups, which provide routine and structure. We also give volunteer training and community volunteering opportunities, as well as encouraging members to pursue new passions, hobbies and skills for the future.

By empowering people, we do not do things for them. We follow them on their recovery journey and support them without doing it for them, showing that life can be bigger and better at Recovery Cymru.

We encourage people to reframe their identity in a positive way. People are so much more than their substances and their pasts. We encourage people to be proud of who they are, what they have overcome and what they continue to achieve.

Connection is vital for recovery. Through peer support, we encourage hope with lived and shared experience. Self-empowerment and commitment are key to positive recovery.

Recovery Cymru helped me find my identity again after my mental health took a battering from my previous employment. It gave me hope that life can be good again by helping empower me to feel good about myself.

This place gives meaning to so many people in so many ways. They do this through connection: online, face to face, through their centres and through the people who are there for each other.

It is all about connection. At first, it is a peer-based connection, which is unique and valuable. But that is just the foundation. Recovery is a stepping stone to take your place in a bigger, wider world.

It is about taking our place wherever we want, and building connection in places that once felt inaccessible, scary or beyond our dreams. Recovery Cymru helps expand the connections of life in recovery, with our neighbours, our peers, our cities and the wider world.