What does the charity Forward Thinking do?

M: And now here’s Betty, who’s come to tell us about this week’s charity.
W: Hi Drew. This week I’m going to talk about Forward Thinking and their plans for the Colville Centre. So, in recent years people have realised how useful the arts can be within healthcare. The idea behind Forward Thinking is to use the arts to promote wellbeing. The charity develops projects for people with special needs and health problems, and also delivers training to healthcare professionals in using the arts, as well as supplying them with information and advice. Forward Thinking doesn’t just run art and craft classes to distract people who are ill, or recovering from illness, but arranges longer-term projects and courses, as it’s been shown that the arts can bring all sorts of positive changes in patients, including benefits such as shortening the length of stay in hospital and reducing the amounts of medicine they need.
M: I see.
W: Forward Thinking has experience of working with a broad range of people from young adults with learning difficulties to older people in homes or daycare centres, and people with physical disabilities. The organisation’s been around since 1986, and it gradually expanded during the 1990s. Then, in the new millennium, it was decided to find a memorable name, so it’s been operating as Forward Thinking for several years, er, in fact since 2005. It’s quite a locally based charity, mainly for people in the southern part of this region, which includes all rural and urban communities outside the city of Clifton, which has its own organisation. There are of course some similar charities in other parts of the country, in London and so on.
M: Mm. And what’s the present fundraising in aid of?
W: Yeah. Well, the charity needs funding in order to buy the Colville Centre. This is a former village school, which was built in 1868. It was modernised and refurbished by the present owners last year, so it’s ideal for art classes and for small social events, performances, seminars and so on. Forward Thinking is fund-raising to purchase the building so they can use it to continue running classes and so on for the general public and eventually also for some of the people they help.