Dowser Day - supporting the Mathiesons court battle

Hello Everyone,

Those of you that follow either me (@edarcherthinks) or Contact A Family (@contactafamily) will have noticed a lot of tweets about Dowser Day recently. You'll have seen lots of photo's of dinosaurs and may have wondered what it is all about.

Over the last few years Contact a Family been supporting the Mathieson family as they fight against the government rule that takes away Disability Living Allowance (DLA) payments from children who spend over 84 days in hospital.

The Mathiesons' son Cameron spent over two years in hospital with cystic fibrosis and muscular dystrophy when his DLA payments were stopped. The family are currently awaiting a decision from the Supreme Court on their legal challenge to scrap this rule. If they are successful it could mean no other family loses essential financial support when their child spends long periods in hospital.



Sadly Cameron passed away in October 2012, aged five. Every year on his birthday, 19 June, his mum, dad, brothers and sister celebrate his life through Dowser Day, a nod to Cameron's love of dinosaurs.

Cameron's dad Craig Mathieson explains: "Cameron loved everything and everyone in his life and, like many boys his age, he was fascinated with dinosaurs. Because of Cameron's speech delay he couldn't say dinosaur and called them Dowsers instead."

 

One of the reasons I love working for Contact A Family is that the Mathieson's aren't a symbol or a test case for us. Everyone in the organization - including people like me who have never met the family take the situation they were put in by this unfair rule personally.

 

Which meant when we were offered a way to show the family we cared about their loss, and we were grateful for all the effort they are putting in to change this situation for other families by joining in Dowser Day celebrations everyone really threw themselves into it.

 

Here's some of the stuff the team made in our lunchbreaks:

You can find loads more contributions to Dowser Day from staff, families and supporters here and our thankyou video here. People from all over the country got involved. It was brilliant, and no it won't make a difference to the outcome of the court case wether we made a giant dinosaur head or not. But it does make a difference to remember that families of disabled children are families first, and to support and celebrate ordinary family life. 

And it does (to me at least) make a huge difference to work in a charity where everyone really gets that and knows that it is not for us to set an agenda for families but to support them to set their own agenda, get their voices heard and celebrate and protest in a way of their choosing. Contact A Family are really good at what they (we) do, because we are all about families leading the way. Doesn't that sound like the kind of organisation you want to support? As always donating is easy you can do so here.

 

  

The birth of the clothes off my back challenge (or why you shouldn't ask a question you don't want an answer to)

At the end of April I sat with a friend at work and had an entirely selfish whinge. 

I'd just read an article on capsule wardrobes & was fully bought in. No problems at all seeing how a capsule wardrobe was a good thing -for other people. But it couldn't possibly work for me. 

You see I own a lot of clothes – LOADS. I own enough dresses I could wear a different one every day from now until mid august before I had to move onto separates. And then by my calculations I could move around separates (at 2 a day) until well into the new year.

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     Yes. I hate how long it takes me to get dressed in the morning. Yes. Most days I feel like I look awful when I leave the house

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      But (IMO) capsule wardrobes only work for tall boyish shaped women and models (I am not either of these things)

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      And anyway what would I do without vintage? God forbid I look like a clone.

 I am slightly ashamed to say this whinge lasted a good 10 minutes. In my lunchbreak. Working for a charity that campaigns around poverty affecting families of disabled children (www.cafamily.org.uk) . Yes, you are correct I am a selfish, selfish person. In my defence at the end of the 10 minutes I did say “all of which seems trivial compared to the 65% of parents of disabled children we talk to who go without essentials like clothes in order to provide properly for their children”. (I didn’t make that stat up by the way it’s here along with the number of families – 33%- who can’t afford to heat their homes). 

 At this point my friend said something brave, and unexpected and really pissing annoying. She said “ Yes it is trivial. It’d be less trivial if you could find a way to help our families while you are having a meltdown about what to wear to work”. Cowbag. Sometimes I wish I didn’t require my friends to be so honest. 

 But also she was right – could I do something about my chronic shopping habit, feel more stylish and help my organisation to support vulnerable families? 

 It turns out yes. I turn 35 in a week and during my 35 year I will:

• Limit myself to wearing 35 items of clothing (including pairs of shoes, gloves, hats and scarves) for the whole year
• Donate the money I’m not spending on clothes to Contact a Family
• Sell most of my wardrobe on ebay to raise more cash
• Ask friends and family to sponsor me & prove I’m sticking to the rules by instragraming what I wear every day
• Get 35 of my friends to host #clothesoffmyback parties where they ‘buy’ cocktails and trade clothes to help out
• Get my friends and family to gamble on most worn items by sponsoring them per wear
• Blog about it. Not just what I wear, but the reactions of the professionals I work with to seeing me in the same clothes day, after day, after day……

Obviously there it's not going to be that simple - there will need to be rules. But that's for another post......

If you want to sponsor my clothes off my back challenge you can do so here