The Helston woman hoping to provide 'green therapy' with memorial woodland

A Helston woman is working on a section of woodland that will help to improve mental health.

Martine Knight lost her son David after he took his own life in 2013. Martine wanted to do something positive in his memory and started to put together plans for 'Butterfly Woods and Davids Creek'.

The project has come a long way since then, with the land showing big signs of change.

Martine told Nub News:

"The butterfly was my son's favourite creature and one of the things that we are hoping to do is reintroduce plants and things butterflies love to encourage insects down there again.

"It has taken me about five years to find the piece of land when we have got it to a state where the access is safe we want to offer it to schools to use as an outdoor classroom and any mental wellbeing groups to use for green therapy sessions because we all know that being out in nature is good for your mental health.

"We want to do something that will help promote better mental health for groups that use it."

Bradfords Building Supplies, RGB at Porthleven and Travis Perkins have all shown their support for the project by promising to donate materials.

Unfortunately, last weekend some of the fencing pins were stolen leaving the fencing flapping all over the land. Martine is determined not let anything negative get in the way, she added:

"It was very disappointing because we have been away for the weekend visiting family, to come back and find that somebody had thought it appropriate to steal some of the fencing pins was sad.

"I don't want to focus on negative things, the positive thing that came out of it was Bradfords giving me some replacement pins free of charge which was lovely."

The land was secured properly just before Christmas, the project is in 'Phase 1' at the moment and there has been a lot of work gone into it already.

Martine is hoping it will be ready by the start of the autumn term when it will be available for schools to use.

Click here to find out more about the project and to follow the progress.