Anam Cara has launched a new initiative entitled ‘A Balloon to Remember’ in memory of the many children who have lost their lives throughout Ireland. The campaign aims to create awareness of the unique support that Anam Cara offers bereaved parents and to raise funds to extend these services to as many bereaved families as possible nationwide.
Launched in early 2008, Anam Cara is a national voluntary support group set up by parents who have themselves lost a child. Their aim is to provide support and understanding to families who have experienced the death of a son or daughter, regardless of their age or the circumstances of their death. It was the inspiration of a few parents who met after the tragic death of their own children and, unintentionally, became each other’s support through the shocking reality of their loss. Through this small group, it soon became evident that a formal support network of this kind was desperately needed in Ireland.
Angela Leydon, Castlebar, whose daughter Eimear died 25, just one month before her 26th birthday from stomach cancer, said: “Anam Cara has simply become the organisation I so desperately looked for when my daughter died.”
The idea of ‘A Balloon to Remember’ is to offer extended family, friends, colleagues and the wider community a chance to show, in their own private way, that they too remember and are thinking of the bereaved parents on November 2, “All Souls”, traditionally a day on which we remember all our loved ones who have died. It means so much to bereaved parents to know others remember their son or daughter; this national campaign gives people the opportunity to ensure they are never forgotten.
If you have not experienced the death of a child, it can be hard to imagine the pain, loneliness and despair that comes with such a loss. By bringing together bereaved families to support and comfort each other Anam Cara plays a valuable role in helping these families carry on after the death of their child, and in time, for the family to live life around the loss.
You can sponsor ‘A Balloon to Remember’ at all Anam Cara’s sponsors’ retail outlets or on line at www.anamcara.ie This national campaign has been kindly supported by Bord Gais Energy, Centra supermarkets, McCabes Pharmacies, Eddie Rockets Diners and Crown Paints, and is running from October 1 through to November 2. On November 2 Anam Cara will launch these balloons sponsored for a loved one at Lloyd Park in Tullamore, Co Offaly. For more information on Anam Cara go to www.anamcara.ie or email [email protected].
