Handing on the Torch – The last things that we talk about!

For the past three years St Catherine’s Hospice, in partnership with Archbishop Temple School, has been running a project called Body Image and we’vedeveloped the idea even further for 2012 by featuring thePreston Guild theme of Handing on the Torch.
Body image introduces pupils to the life and work of the Hospice by allowing them to spend time with patients from St Catherine’s Day Therapy Unit and share stories together. It encourages pupils to think about illness, well being and our bodies and helps them to think through some of the pressures our society outs on them about their own bodies.
This year, throughout June and as part of the Handing on the Torch theme, patients will be speaking to pupils about ten things that they have learnt in life. The aim is to allow one generation to hand on the torch of its experience to another.
Parliamentary Support
MP Jo Swinson, who as chair of the recently released All Party Parliamentary Group report entitled Body Image, appeared on Radio 4’s Today programme to discuss this very issue in society, describes the partnership between the school and the Hospice as, ‘a very powerful project’.
Cutting Edge
As well as introducing pupils to the life and work of the Hospice the project has also, in the words of one past pupil, ‘taught me a lot about body image, self confidence and belief, death and illness and acceptance.’
The project has immense positive impact on patients. One previous patient involved in the project wanted to know when the pupils would be returning to the Hospice as, ‘I’ve not felt this alive for years.’
Commenting on the importance of the project, Ian Dewar its co-ordinator from the Hospice said that, ‘this is a really life changing project and allows the Hospice to give back something to the wider community that supports it. What we want to do now is to extend this to other schools and so we are contacting the heads of all the secondary schools in the area that we serve and inviting them to a presentation of the results of this year’s project at the end of June.
Comments and powerful testimonies from teachers involved in the project are here
For more details contact Rev Ian Dewar, St Catherine’s Hospice 01772 629171

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