Time capsule records residents' lockdown experiences

Residents and service users of Salvation Army homelessness projects across Scotland are creating a time capsule that captures their emotions during lockdown.

Contents includes photos, videos, pictures, poems and notes that have been gathered over the past two months.

It will be buried once lockdown is over in the hope someone will find it in the future and look back on the experiences of those involved.

Karen Good, project manager at Eva Burrows First Stop Project in Cambuslang, said the idea came about as a way of enabling residents to feel part of a community and not shut off from the outside world.

Karen said: “Lockdown isn’t only about what’s happening now. Many of the residents the Salvation Army supports have already gone through some sort of lockdown in their lives whether it’s been isolating from their family or their entire lives as a result of the challenges they have experienced.  People have said that this experience makes them feel as though they are in the same position as everyone else, potentially for the first time in their lives.

“We’re trying to make things as comfortable and as happy as possible. We’re working together with the staff teams from all our centres and projects in Scotland to make a time capsule and capture what everybody is doing, as well as what they are feeling.

“When you’re trying to follow the government guidelines by isolating, that can be especially difficult when your living with a group of people. But everyone has pulled together to capture all the good things that we do and let people know we’re still here and we’re safe.”

Eva Burrows resident Craig Park says he’s thankful for living at the Salvation Army centre during lockdown because it has enabled him to feel part of a community.

Craig said: “I had been living by myself for two years and so coming here and having the lockdown has actually allowed me to feel part of a community and that’s something I would never have had unless I came here. It’s allowed me to meet a lot of really nice people that I would never normally meet in my day-to-day life.

“Obviously the lockdown is a horrendous thing but I have benefitted from it in some ways and that’s down to the Salvation Army staff. Their support during this period has brought us closer together and I really appreciate that.

“Maybe 50 years down the line we can look back and say: ‘I was here and this is what I done.’

“Maybe some of us here are going through rough patches and we can dig up that time capsule and see where we were and how we’ve moved forward.”