Features / Southmead Project
Southmead Project paddles to parliament
Two representatives of the Southmead Project have paddled 120 miles in a canoe to present a letter to UK Parliament, to raise awareness of victims and survivors of childhood abuse, and to campaign for more funding to support this vulnerable group.
Dr Mike Peirce MBE, his brother Terry and a crew of supporters set off from Devizes Marina on Monday, September 11, and arrived in Westminster five days later. Mike is CEO of Southmead Project, a Bristol-based charity who provide free therapeutic and practical support to adults who were abused as children and have turned to alcohol, drugs and other forms of self-harm.
“The motivation for Paddle to Parliament was brought on from exasperation,” Mike told Bristol24/7. “Nearly 25 years after founding the Southmead project, the response to adults abused as children who’ve gone on to self-harm hadn’t triggered on anyone’s radar.
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“For many years we were pushed from pillar to post, trying to raise money from clinical commissioning and drug referral groups in Bristol. One would say, ‘Oh no, that’s a drugs problem,’ while the other was saying ‘Oh, that’s a clinical problem’. This client group were stuck in the middle of that squabble.”
Mike, Terry and the Southmead Project team with their red boat, before the launch
Mike says he was told by subsequent mayors of Bristol that no money was available from central government for this vulnerable group, so, as he puts it: “I had no choice. I suppose I could have given up, but I don’t do that. Desperation calls for ridiculous actions sometimes, so I thought, let’s do just that.” The Southmead Project has been running since 1994, and Mike has received an MBE in recognition of his charitable work and contribution to the local area.
Mike’s solution was to take the fight to the top. “Going straight to parliament and bypassing all the rhetoric made sense to us,” he continues. “Our pleas to parliamentarians of all parties are to find budgets for this group. I don’t believe this client group, each one an innocent victim of a heinous crime, should be treated this way. It is a disgrace.”
Mike and Terry paddled 120 miles in all weathers
The word Mike uses to describe the week-long row is “arduous”. “I’m no canoeist,” he admits. “I’m 72 years old. To do 120 miles in a canoe in inclement weather was an arduous effort, but in doing it we were creating more press and seeing more people taking note. I got 300-400 new Twitter followers during it, and so the name of who we are, and, most essentially, what we do, has been heightened.
“The journey was tough, but it was fun as well. The day we started off the wind was blowing us backwards and there was rain going sideways. The boats were different to what we were practicing in on the docks, and they weren’t as stable, so I suppose you could say the start was chaos.
“But we knew we could do it, and gradually settled down. There were bridges where you had to lie flat in the boat to miss the steel struts, and other vessels pushed us into the reeds and the stingers and other lovely things. At times, it was fraught.”
The journey took them past Eton College
Mike and brother Terry took a quick breather and a photo opportunity at Eton College’s boat yard – “all very posh, of course, and not very often Southmead goes to Eton” – and also had to land their boats in people’s back yards when they reached the end of the day and couldn’t find a way off the river and back to the support vehicle following them.
“We had with us three people who’d been through Chandos House Addiction Treatment Centre, as a backup team. They were all volunteers – they did it through the love of what Southmead Project does,” Mike says. “It was one of those beautiful things where people get together and do things, without asking ‘What’s in it for me?’, in contrast to today’s society.”
When Mike and Terry arrived into London on Friday, September 15, they found the river locked down on account of the terrorist incident at Parson’s Green underground station. However, they eventually managed to get to Westminster over land.
Delivering their letter to parliament
“As we knew the MPs go home on Friday, we knew it was likely we’d be met by the janitor and the cat. But we wanted to use that analogy, because no one’s heard the voices of the victims of childhood abuse, and there’s no one there for them,” Mike says. In the end, they were met by a representative of Bristol North West’s Labour MP, Darren Jones, who had previously voiced support of the project.
The charity’s open letter to MPs was handed over at the end of the long journey to parliament. “I don’t believe this will just fizzle out and nothing happen – we’re not made like that,” Mike says of himself and the team at Southmead Project. “This is an opportunity for Darren Jones to show his worth as a Labour representative, first to unite the Labour MPs, and wider Labour Party.
“The Labour Party could benefit greatly to come down on the side of this client group. The ‘party of the people’ has done nothing for so many, many people. It’s an opportunity for the Labour Party to take this challenge up and be the front of this change, and to put aside political differences aside to help people. If we can’t put aside our differences, we’re on a very rocky path indeed.”
To find out more about Southmead Project, visit www.southmeadproject.org.uk.
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