Cross Gen Entertainment is a community based business in Bletchley, Milton Keynes, who plan on opening a centre to support people in the area who struggle with mental health by offering a range of activities including; gaming, music, movies and outdoor community projects.

Cross Gen was registered on 11th November 2020 as a limited company to Jordan Garner. The idea snowballed from an online gaming team and has got progressively bigger with numerous projects.

We will hold activities encouraging people to battle their problems with others that have been through similar/same scenarios in life. It will be decorated with stories, mainly my own, for people to read and relate to, and hopefully encourage them to open up about issues that they may have been fighting alone. This is extremely hard for me, as one of the main problems I have personally is severe anxiety so I struggle discussing my own problems and worries. Putting myself on the frontline is difficult to say the least, but I truly believe this method can change the way people look at others suffering as it encourages understanding and acceptance of others situations.

There will always be people that have different feelings or reactions to yourselves. This is human nature, we are (apparently) the smartest species on the planet because we are able to make our own choices. We choose what we say, how we act and what we do. The emotion I want to reach is behind the wall everyone seems to have put up. The shield that reduces people's empathy, compassion and understanding.

We live in a world where technology rules 99% of our lives, and we have the whole world and then some at the touch of a finger. I think this is the cause of the wall. We all feel we have a platform to share our opinions, connect with each other and everything in between, but as soon as someone disagrees, it's all hate, slander, threats and anger. There is no discussion, reasoning or talking about why the other person feels that way. This has pushed us further away than we have been as a species in a long time.

There are not many places that support mental health to a degree where others can relate, feel encouraged and comfortable enough to open up about their struggles. Not enough people talk about their struggles or feelings nowadays and this has forced us apart as a community. So we plan to offer a safe, welcoming and calm environment for people to see that it is still okay to talk. The centre will be decorated with stories and items to support people in whatever walk of life they are from. The stories will be real life experiences with as much detail as possible so everyone can try and feel some comfort and understand that others have spoken up, and it’s okay for them to do the same.