I’m asking James Dunbar a question, down the line from Inverness, when he interrupts.
I had thought the question was relatively straightforward. James is the founder of charity New Start Highland and has spent the past quarter of a decade helping people across the north of Scotland.
That’s 25 years of seeing people caught in cycles of abuse, seemingly hopeless situations or dragged low by addiction.
Doesn’t it ever get him down?
But James, who in 2016 was awarded an OBE for his work with New Start, doesn’t see it that way.
“I’m just going to cut across you there,” he tells me politely but firmly before making his point.
Almost every day, James says, someone his charity has helped stops him on the street. They do this to thank him, and to tell him about the life they now live, one very different to before.
What more motivation do you need?
“The most exciting thing is to see a life absolutely transformed,” James continues. “We have had hundreds and hundreds of people that have come through our different programs, people who may, for example, have come from a family whose expectation was that they would become a drug dealer.
“But that young person has said, ‘I want a different life’.
“That’s where my energy comes from. That’s what encourages and motivates me to keep doing it.”
Why James Dunbar started New Start Highland
It is an energy that has helped James carve out a distinctive path within Scotland’s non-profit sector.
Growing up in Lairg in Sutherland, he started working for faith-based charity CrossReach in Inverness.
However, he saw gaps in the care the charity provided, “simple things that would have made a huge difference in people’s lives,” he says.
When he highlighted the gaps, he was told that delivering the kind of care he was asking for was too complicated.
“So that’s, to cut a long story short, how New Start Highland came to be,” he explains.
The long story, however, is better.
When James was 13, his older sister Margo killed herself.
He believes that the devastation of losing his sister as a teenager propelled him into helping others, though it took him years to realise it.
“I was a little boy, a 13-year-old boy, trying to get my head round why my big sister chose to take her life. There’s a lot of self-blaming goes on, or there was to me, anyway.
“So there was a point in my life that I thought, well, that pain is there, and there’s all that energy through pain — do I use this to do something good?”
What New Start offers to the Highlands
New Start has expanded greatly since then, but still adheres to the ethos James instilled at the start — to help people in the local community get back on their feet after hardship.
New Start does this by offering training and employment opportunities to people that might struggle otherwise.
The charity employs about 75 people, working for the charity itself or in one of New Start’s six retail shops across the Highlands.
In fact, James’ current preoccupation is his burgeoning chain of re-use furniture stores, Unique-Ness, which is a generous employer to New Start clients as well as meeting what he calls “unprecedented need” for second-hand furniture.
New Start has two outlets — one in Inverness’s Eastgate Shopping Centre and the other in a furniture store on Henderson Road.
And because staff are restoring items, working with their hands, James says it increases confidence, resilience and “sense of worth as they see something they’ve made”.
He adds: “There’s so much about creativity — whether it be growing, whether it be restoring furniture or cooking — that’s just so good for the soul.”
‘We’ve never had a year that’s been so busy’
Set against James’ energy and drive, however, are the realities of life for many people in the cost-of-living crisis.
It is a crisis engulfing more people every day.
In the last year alone, New Start has helped more than 100,000 people in the Highlands. That includes more than 200,000 meals to people that can’t afford to eat, and more than 10,000 recycled bikes given to people without other means of transport.
“That’s a lot of people,” James says. “We’ve never had a year that’s been so busy, and our experience is that every year is becoming our busiest year.”
He doesn’t see it getting better any time soon either. He’s staunchly apolitical, but he knows how impactful government policies can be.
He guarantees, however, that he’ll keep working — for the next 25 years if he can.
“As long as I’m blessed with health,” he laughs.
“Times keep changing, needs keep evolving, and I think it’s important that those of us who can, just keep making a positive contribution.”
If you or someone you know is struggling, the Samaritans have a free helpline which can be accessed 24/7 by calling 116 123, or you can email jo@samaritans.org
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