March 2011

Carers Week 2011 Survey

Dementia UK is a National Partner in Carers Week 2011 (13th -19th June) along with Carers UK, Age UK, Parkinson's UK, Macmillan Cancer Care, Counsel and Care, Princess Royal Trust for Carers and Crossroads Care.

The theme for 2011 is The True Face of Carers and Carers Week has launched a nationwide survey to ascertain what the reality of being a carer is in Britain today.

Carers Week will ask how hard is life as a carer? Or how easy? How much help do carers actually receive from statutory agencies and government, local and national? Or should that be how little?

How do carers think society sees them? What is the reality of caring in the UK in 2011? What are the biggest surprises that you and I encounter when we become carers? What can really make a difference to carers lives? Is it money? Or something else?

Is caring a perpetual struggle with no thanks and no recognition? Or a richly-rewarding experience that brings out the best in the human spirit?

The survey will take approximately 10 minutes to complete online and is completely confidential. If you require a hardcopy survey, please contact Carers Week directly.

Poetry Book in aid of Dementia UK
 

Dementia UK supporter Joanna Field has gathered together poems she has written over the years and published them in a book called 'The Space Beyond'.
All proceeds from the sale of the book are being donated to the charity.
Below is one of the poems in this wonderful collection, which explores the themes of memory and the past.

Losing

She asks me if I've brought her cigarettes
She's never smoked, but these days she forgets
Long minutes, hours, weeks will pass her by
She breathes. She sobs. She shouts. And she forgets

She can't remember where she is, or why
I tell her constantly but she forgets
Her world's a static round of repetition:
she eats, she sits, she sleeps, and she forgets

I watch her in the throes of demolition -
remind her that I love her. She forgets
Each day more bits of her break off and die
I hold her, croon our song. Still she forgets

She doesn't know me sometimes, turns all shy
as if we might have met, but she forgets
Sixty years together. No regrets . . .
although that whole life's lost now she forgets. 

 
To purchase a copy of the book visit our Books page.