Deidre Brock MP paid tribute to the success of Leith’s Time Bank in the House of Commons on Tuesday (27th February).
The Edinburgh North and Leith MP led a debate on timebanking across the UK and called for extra support to help the movement grow.
Timebanking is based on a simple premise: for every hour you spend helping someone, you earn an hour back for your time bank. Rather than volunteering in the traditional sense, it is based on a reciprocal exchange of skills.
Run by respected Leith charity the Pilmeny Development Project, Leith’s Time Bank has been going for over a decade and is an amazing success story, providing opportunities for people of different ages, cultures and backgrounds to share their skills, knowledge and experience with others.
Members have described the time bank as a “lifeline”, boosting their mental health and wellbeing and creating opportunities to meet exchange skills and experiences with people from different generations, backgrounds and walks of life.
Deidre Brock said: “Timebanking deserves much more recognition, so I was delighted to raise the fantastic work of Leith’s Time Bank and the wider network during the debate.
“We all have skills, knowledge and experience to offer that could be beneficial to someone, whether it’s gardening, sewing, simple repairs, language teaching, running errands, tech skills, or whatever it might be.
“Timebanking is a great way for people to exchange expertise without any money changing hands, and it can have such a positive impact on community cohesion and tackling social isolation and loneliness.
“The minister was very complimentary about timebanking and I’ve secured a meeting with him to discuss the concept further. We’ve also had a lot of interest from people keen to learn more and even set up new timebanks in their own area.”
Transcript of the debate: https://bitly.ws/3erqp
Video of the debate: https://bitly.ws/3ejtU
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