The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
Charity teams up with app to make signs and save lives
Handmade signposts bearing seemingly nonsensical three-word phrases could help save lives in remote parts of rural Scotland.
The ornate wooden notices are being built by Perthshire charity The Workshop Aberfeldy. They can be used by emergency services to quickly find precise locations in fields, forests or mountains.
The signs correspond to the what3words app, which divides the world up into 57 trillion 10ft by 10ft squares, each with a unique, randomly generated threeword code.
For example, a square at the Birks of Aberfeldy, near the workshop, is called: “sing.birdcage.become”.
If someone gets stranded, but can’t name their location, they can use the app to find their three word phrase and share it with emergency crews.
Last year, kayaker Jason Woodhouse was able to use the geocoding app to alert emergency services to his whereabouts when he was stranded in Loch Ericht.
Having physical signposts strategically placed around the countryside will help people find their location “address” without using the app.
The Workshop Aberfeldy, a charity which helps those with additional support needs to build skills and confidence, has won the contract to make the signs as part of a team-up with the app’s creators.
More than 100 oak, metallic and acrylic signs were made in the first week of production.
They can also be personalised as fun gifts, such as marking the location where a couple first met, or a useful tool for hard-to-find holiday accommodation.
Rosie Baxendine, who works for business development at the workshop, said: “We’re incredibly proud of our team, the people we work with and our community.
“Together, we are transforming people’s lives.
“To win a contract such as this has been a huge boost for us in such difficult times.
“The majority of our income traditionally came from events and hospitality, so to expand into a new market when we were struggling was such a relief for us.”
The Workshop Aberfeldy was set up by Gina Wallace and Paul Parmenter in June 2014, and became an independent charity two years later.
Their aim was to create a bridge between education and employment for young people in Highland Perthshire, where the rural location can limit opportunities.
They said they wanted to create a genuine business where young people can gain practical skills as well as transferable employability skills such as teamwork and timekeeping, empowering them to successfully find employment or further training.