Inner Man Project/Facebook

By Chantal Wagner

Inner Man Project receives $50 K provincial grant

Feb 23, 2021 | 5:23 PM

MEDICINE HAT, AB – The Inner Man Project Foundation based in Medicine Hat has received a substantial grant from the province.

$50,000 will help support their mental health initiative in the community and beyond.

Founded in September 2020, the Inner Man Project is a non-profit organization and community support group.

Their focus is to shine a light on the darkness of men’s mental illness and mental health.

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The group applied for the grant back in November.

Co-founder Shayne Cockerill says they weren’t expecting to receive $50,000.

The money is part of the provincial government’s Phase 3 of the Community Grant Funding Program during COVID-19.

Cockerill says the grant will support their programming.

“We are still going to continue to volunteer on our end, we’re not taking any of the cut on this. This is all going towards programming and our community centre. So for us, we have plans to do a personal development program, first responders, grief counselling run by our co-founder Melissa, as well as Waves, and we also have our men’s peer sessions for the general public every Sunday.”

Waves and the compassion project are facilitated by co-founder Melissa Eckes, which is women inclusive.

The first responder’s session runs every Wednesday at 7 pm with Cockerill.

The Inner Man team is also working on a personal development program which is slated to run in April.

The Inner Man Project community centre is located at 6-941 South Railway Street and Cockerill says it’s a space where everyone can get together.

“It creates that normality, same place, same time, everything like that so I think it’s just growing our numbers every day because it’s one central place.”

Cockerill says they’ve seen people come to the centre not just from Medicine Hat and area but Maple Creek, Calgary, and Red Deer as well.

Their online platform has also been popular, with international members and followers. Their online private forum is available on Facebook.

Cockerill adds MLA for Brooks-Medicine Hat Michaela Glasgo has been assisting the local foundation.

“She’s had close contact with us and has been helping us do what we can on our end to better our program.”

The Inner Man Project: Facebook

The Inner Man Project: Twitter

The Inner Man Project: Instagram

Their email is innermanyxh@gmail.com