Alongside visiting Amy's Place and meeting the residents whose lives are changing thanks to the support of the Amy Winehouse Foundation, Happiful spoke to the Founder of this fantastic initiative, Amy's dad Mitch:
Amy would truly love Amy's Place. She would understand that everyone deserves a second chance
“We decided to set up Amy’s Place because there are so few ‘women only’ recovery houses. Many of the women who come out of treatment have nowhere to go. Subsequently, they return to the places that caused their problems. We want young women to be able to continue their recovery in a relaxed fashion without added distractions. There are so many activities and courses, including Yoga, gardening, and art therapy, that residents can have full and enjoyable days.
We now have a sizeable waiting list so we would dearly love to open further houses, finances permitting.
Amy would truly love Amy’s Place. It’s so loving and nurturing – just as she was. She would understand that everyone deserves a second chance. Most of these women have been victimised and coerced into addiction. Amy would want to help these women re-enter society. Many of them have already re-entered the workplace or started back in education. Even after just one year, the results are incredible.
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Our long-term vision is to help as many disadvantaged young people as we can. As well as Amy’s Place, we have two projects in the Caribbean, and two in North America. In the UK, we have music therapy at the London Centre for Children with Cerebral Palsy and Haven House Children’s hospice. We also have Amy’s Yard, which develops underprivileged young people through music. But our biggest project is the Resilience Programme, where people in recovery visit schools up and down the country to talk about the things that affect kids today, including drink and drugs. In the past three years, we’ve addressed more than 200,000 school kids.
I think Amy would be rightly proud of what we are doing. Even six years after her passing, Amy is helping literally thousands of young people. We need to continue to raise money so that we can reach even more disadvantaged kids.”
Read Happiful's article on Amy's Place to find out more about the fantastic work the Amy Winehouse Foundation is doing. You can also learn more about Amy's Place on their website and follow the AWF on twitter – @amysfoundation
