By Simon Wright - Follow me on Twitter @Siwri88
Landing the
current full-time role back in the middle of July felt great. Not only did it provide a comfortable income
for the first time since the end of those student loans we all relied on during
the University days, it gave me the encouragement to do something else I’m
happy to do.
Starting last
month, I am giving something back to a couple of worthy charities, who need all
the promotion and support required to make lives better for those who are more
unfortunate, or had a real unlucky break in life.
Despite my
bad run of luck when it came to job applications, I can claim to be one of the
fortunate ones. I might be unlucky in
love, but am very privileged with what else I have.
I have a
loving family, some close friends, professional acquaintances, decent health, a
good income, clothes to wear, regular foot to eat and the odd luxury here and
there. When I say luxury that is being
able to treat yourself to a new shirt for work, or a new autobiography to read
from Amazon or Waterstones, not things like swimming pools, tennis courts or
Lamborghinis!
Others in the
United Kingdom are not so lucky, and if you expand that to a worldwide scale –
then think about the people trapped in Syria at the moment. You can’t imagine what they are going through
as they try to flee a country that is in the news for all the wrong reasons at
the moment.
Go further
back in time and think about those affected by natural disasters, such as the
Asian tsunami of Boxing Day 2004, the earthquake that devastated Haiti in 2010
and the horrific Japanese tsunami of March 2011. All of these have happened because of the
force of Mother Nature. No-one deserves
this kind of element, but it is sadly a cruel part of the world we live in. I made a donation to those who suffered in
Haiti because it was something I wanted to do, and felt they needed the
aid. For example, while I might have
been enjoying my University experience, some of the sufferers in
Haiti would probably have been struggling to get a proper meal or a clean glass
of water.
For me
though, the people and the families I utterly feel for the most is when they
get a devastating health setback that can change their lives forever. For the majority, this is another wicked form
of the planet we share together.
I’ve always
wanted to give something back, and that meant making donations to charities that
most definitely deserve my support in their battles to make life easier for
more unfortunate people. It is something
I’ve wanted to do for a while too, but never been able to, until I got into a
settled financial position with suitable income coming in. Now I have this, I am happier to make a contribution
back to the less fortunate.
Therefore I
am proud to announce that from last month, I set-up a regular monthly donation
to two great charities and they are the British Heart Foundation and Teenage
Cancer Trust.
 |
| The BHF are doing some fantastic work |
The British
Heart Foundation is the nation’s leading charity for tackling heart disease. Currently, there are almost 2.7m people
living in the UK with coronary heart disease and the numbers are rising. That statistic shocked me when I read the
booklet the BHF sent to me on the donation I started recently, but I know they
are doing some incredible work to change these numbers for the better. I know that with my small contribution on a
monthly basis, I could be helping research for understanding heart disease and
how it occurs and how it can be cured.
There are so many ways where you can help out, whether that is doing
charity events or making a regular contribution which is what I’m doing. The BHF’s official Twitter channel sent me a
tweet last month to thank me for my donation, and it is one of the main charities
I always wanted to do something for in close proximity.
 |
| Teenage Cancer Trust is an amazing cause that I'm delighted to be a part of |
Teenage
Cancer Trust (logo pictured) is another amazing cause that I only really started researching more
recently. Every day, six young people
across the UK are told they will have some form of cancer, whether that is
lung, pancreatic, testicular or any other form of this deadly disease. Being a young adult myself, this is something
that you simply can’t comprehend if you received this devastating
diagnosis. Teenage Cancer Trust is
working very hard to build specialist teenage cancer units in NHS hospitals up
and down the UK. They might have only
been around for two decades, but they have been supported by many famous
people. They include boyband Blue, film
star Nicholas Hoult and the England football team.
While I haven’t
personally been affected by any family loss to these diseases, I am fully aware
of their hard work and a couple of scenarios – one fiction and one in the real
world made me want to support both causes even more.
In March
2012, the football world came together in support for the footballer Fabrice
Muamba. Muamba was a fit athlete at the
peak of his powers and playing in the Premier League for Bolton Wanderers when
he suffered a shock cardiac arrest and collapsed on the turf at White Hart Lane
during an FA Cup quarter-final between his side and Tottenham Hotspur. Despite being clinically dead for 78 minutes,
Muamba miraculously survived and recently became a dad for the second
time. Although his football career came
to an end, he still has his life and he is working with the British Heart
Foundation to get defibrillators into football grounds up and down the
country. Football has always been a huge
part of who I am as a personality, and when you see something like that, it
does shake you up and you want to help out as best as you can.
Earlier this
year, E4 teen drama Skins took the brave decision to hand a cancer storyline in
their final series to one of their leading characters. Naomi Campbell played by the talented actress
Lily Loveless was given the shock diagnosis that she had cancer in Skins
Fire. Sadly, this would have an unhappy
ending and as treatments including radiotherapy and chemotherapy didn’t work,
the cancer spread and ended up being incurable.
Naomi would end up dying at a young age, and whilst there was anger at
the heartbreaking ending given to the popular ‘Naomily’ couple in Skins, it was
a brave and sensitive issue that the production team tackled. While it could have perhaps been given better
coverage, it did highlight the threat of cancer to youngsters, even in their
early 20s. Watching these episodes was really
sad, and although I disagreed with the final outcome, I accepted that it had a
powerful impact for the following watching the show.
These two
tales, one that happened in real-life and one that happened in television
portray the emotions that can be felt when lives are suddenly turned upside
down. It encouraged me to support these
two charities even more and I’m delighted to now be doing that.
I can now say
that I am supporting two tremendous causes and this gives me joy and happiness
to be part of the fight to tackle two health issues that need more public
attention because they deserve it. I hope that with my regular donations, I will be helping to make lives better.
Together, the numbers can decrease of those who have to live with heart
problems and cancer and I am proud to be joining the fight to tackle the
statistics.
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