Poor mental health, thankfully, is becoming a widely recognised issue and is increasingly acknowledged and accepted in society. Commonly, it is the large or multinational charities that attract the media attention. RTProjects is a small, local mental health charity harnessing the art and creative fields to help people suffering with poor mental health to feel more confident about themselves and the world. Simultaneously they aim to provide a supportive community and a skillset that can be used outside of sessions. RTProjects is able to work on a deeply personal and intimate level to engage with the people that they help than some other, larger, charities.
When I first heard about RTProjects it seemed a perfect opportunity to get involved with a smaller charity. Rightly or wrongly I felt that here my time might be spent in a more impactful way rather than as another cog in the machine of a larger organisation. Perhaps the fact that after only a few months of working with the extraordinary people behind RTProjects I am willing to drop out of a plane from 15,000ft to help raise a bit of cash is testament to how important their work has become to me. In the short time that I have been working with Emma and Beano, the wonderful people that set up and run RTProjects, I have been welcomed quite literally with open arms into the RT family (if you’re not a hugger you need not apply).
The session that I usually helped out with was called ‘making memories’. It was targeted at dementia sufferers as well as their caregivers. What made this session so meaningful was that rather than simply focusing on the person living with dementia exclusively, it built and cared for their critically important relationship with their carers. These relationships are vulnerable to strains or damage as result of each person being less and less able to relate to each other. Often the primary caregiver isn’t a trained medical professional and is just trying to do the best they can to care for someone that is becoming less and less like the one they know and love. These sessions bought joy and laughter, and most importantly relief, to everyone that attended it. My unmatched talent for providing the caffeinated beverages may or may not have added to this.
Tragically, a couple of weeks ago this session had to be cut due to a lack of funding. My sponsored skydive is both a means to an end in fund-raising, and also a vehicle to publicise the need for support. This session is just one example of the many classes that they run on a weekly basis which are available to Durham community members of all ages and abilities. The north east of England has some of the highest incidences of poor mental health in the UK, which only serves to reinforce the importance of their work.
For most of us it is only once we have been personally affected by an issue that it we seek out others in a similar predicament and I am grateful that my personal struggle with mental health lead me to RTProjects. I now want to try and spread the word and raise awareness and money for the cause and I am glad to have happened upon a rather extreme and hopefully newsworthy method of fundraising to help get RTProjects’ name out there. Whilst it is very easy to glorify this skydive as an act of bravery (or as my mother puts it stupidity) it pales in comparison to that of incredible people like Emma and Beano, who are dedicating so much to helping people live with poor mental health
My jump will not be nearly as terrifying as the battle faced by so many who confront mental health issues and I have definitely had days where this skydive has seemed like a far easier prospect than simply getting up out of bed and leaving the house. Coping, surviving, living with or overcoming such illnesses is the daily battle being fought by an increasing number of us, and those people, as well as the ones helping them are the real heroes and they are the ones who have inspired me to take this crazy jump, that being said I am very open to wearing a cape for this.
Please check out my fundraising page (below) and donate generously, alternatively check out the fundraising pages of my fellow crazies and see if any of their amazing causes tickles your pickle. https://mydonate.bt.com/fundraisers/ellaclouston1?page=1#donationsList
BUTLER HUB 