Raise Up Finchley
Our first Community Outreach Event

A 25 year-old gazing at our stand who had lost her mum only a week earlier after a four year illness. A father who had raised his kids alone after their mother left them because of mental health and drug problems. Another father whose five year old is motherless and is currently being raised by her ageing grandmother. A lovely lady who had lost her mother aged 19 and now works with bereaved children. Several children who wrote messages for their mothers on our whiteboard and took some time to think about motherless children.

These were some of the people that spent time at our stand last Sunday, on a perfect sunny day at Finchley’s Raise Up event for mental and emotional health.

Out of all of them only the lady who works with bereaved children knew we’d be there, everyone else happened to be passing by, and yet there were so many stories shared of early life without a mother.

It made me realise how common early motherloss really is; in its many different forms and how important it is that young people and families aren’t marginalised because of it. One of the fathers said that he felt judged at school PTA meetings because the mother was absent. Another father said he wanted to raise his 5 year-old motherless daughter himself but didn’t feel there was enough support or guidance around him to do it well.

Asked 'Whats the first thing you think or feel when you hear the word mum?' the messages on our white board read; love, my heart, my hero, cherish, mum’s food, about to talk about going somewhere exciting, always funny and ‘always there’. Well sometimes she isn’t there and that’s ok, so long as we can recognise it in our communities.

Thanks so much to everyone who dropped by, to Barnet and to Juliet and Kajal from Dallas-Pierce-Quintero for inviting us to our first community event.
This endeavour is all about connecting people locally and it was so refreshing to meet everyday people on the ground and be reminded why it’s important.