Mum of two from Lonan, Caroline Walter, is leaping into skydiving to raise funds for two local childrens charities.
Caroline wanted to raise money to help both the Manx Association for the Welfare of Children in Hospital (MAWCH) and Rebecca House Childrens Hospice. “I have friends who have seen first hand the amazing work that both charities do for ill children on the Island. I wanted to be able to help them and give something back” Caroline explained. “I know how traumatic it is having a sick child. Although my children haven’t needed to stay in hospital I can understand the emotional upset and disruption that hospitalisation can cause families”. This is where the work of the Manx Association for the Welfare of Children in Hospital comes in.
The charity is over 50 years old. Back then children were given toys as a comfort whilst in hospital as parents were not allowed to stay with their children. This was shortly before Sir Henry Platt investigated the care of children in hospital and what became known as the Platt Report found, in 1959, children could be emotionally traumatised by the hospital experience, having been abandoned by their parents at a time they needed them most.
The report kick started a revised approach to hospital treatment for children, the creation of children’s wards and the birth of the charity the National Association for the Welfare of Children in Hospital, a branch of which opened in the island and from the late 1980s the ‘National’ became ‘Manx’. The charity campaigned for parents to be able to stay with their children during hospitalisation and provides comfortable camp beds, it pressured and paid for courses for a play leader in hospital.
Having achieved so much, today money mainly goes on helping people with transport costs, helping families with children being treated off Island, all the bills still need paying at home. One parent might have to stay off work and there could be extra child care costs, the health services will pay for flights but it’s the background costs. Health professionals dealing with very sick children, can recommend who might need help even if they have not asked for it. Money raised does not just stay in the bank and nearly all of what the charity raises each year is spent.
For more information on MAWCH, contact Margret Davies on 823114.
Caroline is travelling with her family from the Island on Thursday 23 August and hopes the weather is fine to do a tandem skydive on Friday 24 at Skydive Southcoast in Salisbury.
If you are able to sponsor Caroline you can drop into Island Exhaust Systems on South Quay, Douglas and make a donation or contact her via Facebook event page “Leap for Lucy”.
