Sponsoring A Child

From the moment Rhianna died Mr L and I wanted to do something in her memory.

We have thought about many different ways to do this, mainly through sponsoring charities and promoting charities work that work with stillbirth and infant death.

We have a page set up in Rhianna’s name donating to Tommy’s and we always promote Saying Goodbye services but neither felt enough. We both wanted to do something more.

So we discussed sponsoring a child, sponsoring a child in Rhianna’s memory. It seemed the perfect thing to do, another child that needed help and support would get it from us because of Rhianna. It would help them, and it would enable Rhianna’s brothers to be proud of something we do for their sister.

We decided this was the right thing to do.

But finding the right organisation was a massive task, one that was much bigger than we first thought. We found lots of places to sponsor children, but none of them seemed right, there was always something that put either myself or Mr L off. It seemed like it was a decision that was never going to happen, a dream never fulfilled.

Everytime we found somewhere it seemed that we got to a dead-end before it started, and once again another dream went flying past.

We just could not agree on an organisation, all of which do good work, but non of them had what we both wanted.

So we almost gave up.

We left it for a good few months, before starting to look again.

This time we looked closer to home, we wanted to sponsor a child closer, in Europe, or even in the UK not that we were sure we could do that, but we knew that is what we needed. So our search started again, and to be honest I didn’t think we would achieve it.

But after a lot of searching, both of us looking for nights on end, searching for the right place to become a sponsor we finally found a company that seemed just perfect.

We looked at them.

We went away.

We looked again.

We spoke to them.

We went away.

We looked again.

And we decided this was the place for us. The similarities of the work I used to do before having children, and the children they were sponsoring were too huge. This was the perfect place for us to sponsor a child.

The decision was made.

We finally decided to take the plunge with bibic.

bibic is a national charity in the UK that has been operating since 1972, founded by Keith Pennock, whose daughter Alison got a brain injury at a young age.

“They offer practical help to families caring for children with conditions like autism, aspergers, cerebral palsy, Down’s syndrome, developmental delay, brain injury and specific learning difficulties like ADHD, dyslexia and dyspraxia.

Its mission is to help children aged from six months to 18 years with conditions affecting their social, communication and learning abilities to achieve their potential for a happier and more fulfilled life.”

The statistics are that 7% of the children living in the UK have a disability, but only 1 in 13 of disabled children receive regular support from their Local Authority, and 8 out of 10 disabled children are bullied with many more be socially excluded. That is a lot of children missing out on the support they need, their families missing out on the support they need.

It is something that Mr L and I feel strongly about, before I had children I worked with children with autism, at home and in schools, I have seen the effect support can have, and have seen the effect no support can have and it is vital that children who need support receive it. This charity really hit home for us.

We wanted to support the work they do in their office in Somerset and we wanted to help by sponsoring a child. And that child was Ray, Ray had a stroke at his birth, and his future was uncertain, no one knew if he would walk, or talk but with the help of bibic therapists his future is looking bright and we wanted to continue that future for him, by supporting him we are helping him to continue getting the therapy that he needs and for other children to get that therapy too.

There are so many children out there in the UK that need this support and we are really pleased we found this charity. As soon as we found them we knew they were right, we knew Ray was the child to be sponsored by us and we were so happy that we found the charity and him.

We have told the boys, not that Boo understands but Baba does, he has seen the welcome pack and he knows we are doing the sponsorship, firstly because Ray needs it, secondly because it is a charity we feel a bond with and thirdly in Rhianna’s memory. He is pleased with it, he agrees, it is a lovely thing to do for Rhianna’s memory, another child is getting the help they need in her name. It’s her little legacy and I am so pleased that he understands it, at his own level, and thinks it is a good idea, and is proud of her.

As Baba said “even though she isn’t here, she is helping someone here” and that is quite amazing!