Sellar Varatharajah (64) gets very emotional when he considers what WMO has done for him.

He was once a popular musician and singer within his Sri Lankan community performing in front of crowds. By the time we met him, he was homeless. He barely spoke and was underweight. In fact, he was feeling so lonely and isolated that he had become seriously mentally ill, and was self-harming.

A former service user of ours told him about us. Sellar came along to our two-day Warm Hubs scheme, which offered a welcome community to anyone feeling lonely.

We talked to Sellar, we offered him friendship and – crucially – the vital support he was looking for. It didn’t take long for us to realise something was very wrong and he badly needed our help.

We offered him compassion, gentle enouragement and the safe space he needed to be able to admit that he'd been self-harming. Then we were able to get him the specific help he needed. He wasn’t even registered with a doctor. That was our starting point. From there, we got the treatment he needed, which included medication, hospitalisation, mental health support and dentistry. We also got him somewhere to live.

 In a matter of just a few months – since he first came into contact with us – his life, he feels, has been transformed. We used to accompany him to all his health visits, the doctor and the hospital, but he’s made so much progress that he does half of them on his own now. For the first time in a very long time, he feels positive about his future and puts that wholly down to WMO.

These days, he’s in such a good place that he's even picked up a keyboard again for the first time in almost three decades, giving the WMO team a mini performance at one of our coffee mornings.

Sellar says: “If I hadn’t come to WMO, I would have got worse, hurting myself more and not caring about what happened to me. Thanks to the support I continue to receive, everything is better now, and I know I will get through this and be better again.”