Duncan Craig is one of the nicest men I have had the privilege of meeting. As founder and chief executive of Survivors Manchester, Craig has taken an extremely painful and personal experience and turned it into a positive, much-needed resource. Their work is concentrated on empowering men to make their own positive life choices, focusing on creating a safe space for them to work through issues, alongside providing support for friends and family.
This spurred Craig to set up Survivors Manchester, not least because when he was desperately searching for support in the North West, he was met with a notable absence of services.
I got a little bit of help from Manchester Rape Crisis on the telephone, but they only deal with women. But she really helped me with some difficult moments. I wanted to do something about it right away. It was literally Microsoft for Dummies. I built this website, bought a pay-as-you-go mobile phone and started a charity.
We have an art psychotherapy group and one-to-one therapy. We have stabilisation work. We work in four different prisons. I wonder if visiting prisons to work with survivors of sexual abuse is a relatively new development? The show, which picked up an Edinburgh Comedy Award for Best Show in , was based around his own experience of sexual assault. The only time you get men together collectively is at a sports match or in the pub. We have to find new and creative ways [for men to express themselves] through art, creativity, storytelling, poetry, graffiti, music, all these things.
He has managed to create me on film. But I could show you [ Hollyoaks ] and it would tell you so much more. Charly has been doing some work with a couple of survivors helping them to write their story. Putting pen to paper, or paint to canvas, is a useful therapeutic method. And does he think that people like Haig, the ambassadors for Survivors, and the sharing of his own narrative Craig has written for the likes of The Guardian and The Huffington Post is helping to change these perceptions?
