ABOUT US
DGD
Dear Green Development is a development organization based in Govan, Glasgow, offering both on-site and remote services locally and beyond. Our areas of expertise include:
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Community Mapping
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Stroke Support and Advocacy Groups
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Youth Work Services
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Community Engagement
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Consultation and Research Initiatives
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School-Based Youth Development
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Mentoring
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Social Enterprises Support
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Community Development Projects
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Additionally, we provide digital inclusion services and customised training programs. Our team can support you to plan and deliver community activities and events such as Gala and Fun Days, youth clubs, campaigns, consultations and outreach strategies.
The company was launched in September 2024, and we are excited about it! The team has extensive experience in the sector and saw this as the perfect opportunity to establish a Community Interest Company. This structure enables us to effectively leverage our skills, knowledge, and expertise. The founder of the company was born and raised in Govan, with family roots in the area spanning over 100 years. This deep connection to the community made it a natural choice for us to base our operations here and call it home.
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A pivotal moment for us came when one of our co-founders was hospitalised for almost four months after a stroke, which ignited our passion to make a difference in the lives of young people and families affected by similar traumatic events. This experience has driven us to establish a company dedicated to using any profits to uplift the outlook and life experiences of stroke survivors, families, and young people affected by the condition. We invite you to check out our videos to discover more about our inspiring journey and the birth of DGD!
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Why We’re Starting a Stroke Support Group
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In recent years, there's been a quiet but serious shift in stroke care in Scotland. Thanks to advances in emergency response and hospital care, more people are surviving strokes—up to 20% more. While that’s a remarkable achievement, it has also created a challenge that our communities were not prepared for: more survivors, fewer services.
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Once discharged from the hospital, stroke survivors often return home to face a different life, physically, emotionally, and socially. Unfortunately, the support to navigate that life has been shrinking. Services that once helped people regain confidence, movement, or even basic independence have been cut, centralised, or quietly phased out due to funding decisions. These decisions weren’t always made with bad intentions, but they left a gap. A growing number of people now find themselves isolated, unsure where to turn, and relying heavily on overstretched families or unpaid carers.
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This is where our community steps in
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We’re creating a local, grassroots stroke support group because waiting for someone else to fix this just isn’t an option anymore. We’ve seen the impact with our own eyes—within our families, our neighbourhoods, and in our own homes. This isn’t just a statistic for us. It’s personal. It’s someone’s gran who used to run the local club, now struggling to manage a kettle. It’s someone’s dad who worked construction his whole life and now feels invisible. It’s the partner or child who becomes a full-time carer overnight, without training or pay, and still gets up every day to do it again.
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People living in areas like Govan are significantly more likely to experience strokes, heart conditions, and other serious health issues compared to the national average. Rates of hospital admissions for preventable illnesses are consistently higher in our community, reflecting the long-term impact of poverty, stress, poor housing, and limited access to healthier choices. This isn’t just about personal lifestyle—it's about structural inequality. If we want to change these outcomes, we need to shift the focus toward prevention and offer realistic, accessible ways for people to live healthier, more active lives. That means community-led initiatives rooted in trust, culture, and local knowledge, not top-down interventions that don’t speak to people’s realities.
Our stroke support group won’t replace specialist rehabilitation services, but it will do something just as vital: connect people. It will offer a space to talk, to laugh, to share experiences and coping strategies. It will provide meaningful activities, from creative sessions to gentle movement and practical advice. And it will be a place where carers can breathe for a moment, knowing they are not alone.
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We have a strong ethos of working and learning together, not just within the organisation but with our partners and participating communities. Using our large network, we aim to connect people with opportunities suited to their own aspirations or needs. This will include linking to resources, training and development opportunities, volunteering and employment roles, as well as providing a space anchored around recovery and wellbeing.
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We’re starting small, but we’re thinking long-term. This group is part of a wider vision—one that includes peer-led support, community learning, cross-community networks and social enterprise. We aim to make it sustainable without depending entirely on short-term grants. That means exploring earned income models, sponsorship, and partnerships that allow us to provide the best service possible.
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While we are not medical professionals, we are a local family with deep roots in Govan, stretching back over 100 years. Like many others, our story is woven into the fabric of this community through industry, shipbuilding, and working-class politics. We bring the lived experience of stroke recovery into a neighbourhood we know intimately, combined with a professional background in community development. We don’t offer medical advice, but we do know how to bring people together, create spaces of care and solidarity, and turn shared challenges into collective action. That’s why we believe we’re the right people to lead this—because this isn’t just work for us, it’s home, it’s everyday reality.
Our Values
As a community development organisation, our values underpin everything we do here at Dear Green Development. They are the foundation of all our actions and initiatives. We encourage you to take a moment to familiarise yourself with some of the things we value the most.
Sustainability
Sustainability involves responsible resource use, environmental stewardship, social equity, economic resilience, and community well-being, while also ensuring sustainable funding and income generation practices are developed to counter the increasing cuts from government and local authority budgets. This approach creates a lasting positive impact for future generations.
Empowerment
At DGD, we believe that empowerment in the third sector really boosts resilience and inclusivity. It’s all about teamwork, giving people a voice, and supporting advocacy and education. We’re all for social justice, innovation, and getting the community involved, while also focusing on self-determination, leadership, and making real change happen!
Innovation
At Dear Green Development, we harness innovation to inspire creativity, tackle challenges, and welcome change. This approach fosters collaboration, encourages inclusivity, and leaves a meaningful mark on our community. We are convinced that collaborative problem-solving cultivates a vibrant and inventive mindset.
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Working Together
At DGD, we’re excited about the power of collaboration! Working and learning together not only cultivates shared knowledge and enhances skills, but it also builds amazing relationships. This dynamic approach sparks innovation, fosters inclusivity, empowers individuals, promotes adaptability, strengthens communities, and drives incredible collective impact!
Our Social Mission
Supporting Stroke Survivors, Families and Carers Through a Difficult Journey, Every Step of the Way.
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Every stroke impacts lives, not only for the individual affected but for their entire family, particularly young people. Adolescents and young adults frequently assume caregiver roles, taking on responsibilities that can overwhelm even the most capable adults. As they confront the emotional, academic, and social challenges of caregiving, these young individuals and their families can endure significant stress, isolation, and a feeling of missed opportunities. Our community organisation is dedicated to providing all profits to provide the support needed to increase the potential for positive outcomes. We strive to work with stroke survivors and families to access a range of services vital to their recovery. It's a long-term goal that can be achieved by moving one square at a time.
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​Our Mission: To Support People to become Empowered Active Citizens
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​Our mission is straightforward yet impactful: to deliver comprehensive support to stroke survivors and people from families affected by stroke, to overcome barriers to their emotional, academic, and social development. We are dedicated to ensuring that the people we work with not only conquer their challenges but also thrive in their personal growth, education, and future aspirations.
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Emotional and Psychological Support
The emotional burden of caregiving can be overwhelming, particularly for young people who may not yet have developed the coping skills to manage such responsibilities. We aim to offer peer support groups that create safe, understanding spaces for young people to connect with others in similar situations. These groups will be a place for them to share their experiences, express their feelings, and find comfort in knowing they are not alone. In addition, we aim to support people to access individual counselling sessions with trained professionals, addressing issues such as stress, anxiety, depression, and caregiver burnout. These services help young people build resilience, emotional strength, and a healthier outlook on life.
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Academic and Career Support
Our organisation is dedicated to supporting young people dealing with caregiving responsibilities or complex and challenging living situations. We will strive to support people in accessing comprehensive tutoring and homework support to ensure they can excel academically despite their circumstances. In addition, our employability support and mentoring programs support them to pursue their educational and career ambitions with confidence. Our career development workshops are specifically designed to help young people explore diverse career paths, cultivate essential professional skills, and embrace future opportunities with certainty.
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Social Engagement and Reducing Isolation
Caregiving and adverse experiences can often lead to feelings of isolation, especially for people who may struggle to find peers who truly understand their situation. We are committed to fostering social connections through recreational programs like group outings, arts and crafts workshops, and day trips. These programs allow people to experience joy and build friendships outside their everyday environment. Additionally, our mentoring program connects young people with others who have experienced similar challenges, providing guidance, advice, and a sense of community. From a survivor’s perspective, the group can serve as a means for connecting with others who understand their experience and are on a similar journey. This will be vital for some people where a stroke has affected their capacity to maintain or develop meaningful relationships. Rebuilding that capacity takes time, and we strive to create a platform for people to get there at their own pace, supported and surrounded by people who genuinely want to see them achieve success.
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Access to Resources and Advocacy
In addition to direct support, our organisation will help people access essential resources, including information on stroke recovery, financial assistance, respite care, and healthcare services. We also aim to advocate for better policies and services that support families impacted by stroke, ensuring that these families have the resources they need to thrive.
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A Vision for the Future
Our goal is to create the conditions for people to learn, develop and empower themselves to move in a positive direction. With the right support they can continue to develop physically, emotionally, academically, and socially, ensuring that they grow into resilient, confident, and successful individuals despite their hardships.
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Our long-term goal is to deliver these support groups in as many locations as required. The company will work with partner and anchor organisations to establish groups, engage the community and build a lasting structure that will be peer-led and driven by the needs of its members. Each stroke group we support will have a free lifetime membership to our ‘Policies and Practices’ network, an umbrella structure to share good practice and build a voice in the policy and political sphere for stroke survivors, carers and families. We are driven by a cultural historical approach and blessed with an active and dynamic problem-solving culture.
OUR TEAM
Callum Lang
Shepards Bush | London
Dorine Mwesiga
Govan | Glasgow
Emily Brown
Govan | Glasgow