Castlehill Annual Update 2024
By Corra Foundation
We’re catching up with Castlehill this week, after visiting Blacklands, Cumnock and Langlees as part of our Annual Place Updates series for 2024.
In Dumbarton on the west coast, Castlehill is an active community, home to amazing community leaders running a variety of activities and maintaining community spaces to help bring local people together.
Two local community leaders are introduced and celebrated in this year’s annual update, hear more from:
- June – community growing champion and founder of Lets Grow Together & Wilma’s Wishes
“…herbs are so expensive to buy and sometimes you just need a wee bunch and not a full bag. This is my 2025 project. I plan to have a raised bed in each area – Castlehill, Brucehill, and Westcliffe. And benches. My mum always said, “it’s always lacking benches here – there’s nowhere to sit and have a gab”. I want to name this Wilma’s Wishes after my mum.”
This year, June has also been working with local schools, planting and growing as part of the Lets Grow Together project. “This is the first time that I’ve run a group on my own, the first time I’ve thought this is something I really want to do. It’s been really nice to see kids thriving outside and taking responsibility for looking after the raised beds and protecting them.”
- Fiona who runs the Empowering Women’s Group
“This started out as a wee women’s group but has grown each year. We’re all about health and wellbeing for women, and providing a safe space to just be who you are. The idea is that you come along, get a bit of peer support and we do different arts, crafts, holistic therapies, combatting stress, meditation. It’s also about identifying who we are, sometimes you forget who you are.”
The group worked hard this year to successfully apply for funding for their health and wellbeing activities and have also run a cooking programme, with plans for a cook book. “In my own work, I’m most proud of the Empowering Women’s Group, it’s about knowing you’re actually supporting people and helping them achieve their goals in lives.”
If you’d like to find out more about the work in Castlehill, look at previous annual updates, visit the Castlehill Place Page or contact Janice for a chat at janice@corra.scot.