We are delighted to share with our readers that a group of six Bath University students has chosen After Umbrage for their third-year university project. Their objectives are to raise awareness of our charity and to fundraise. Their enthusiasm to support and extend the reach of our work is having a great impact and we want to introduce the six students to you.
Meet the team
First up is Jack Bennett. He is from Warwick and was influenced to choose After Umbrage as his close friend is currently looking after their terminally ill mother. He says her bravery is absolutely astonishing. She goes about her day as she would normally, and cares for her mother where she can. Not only this, but she has a little one at home who isn’t at school yet. “So for her to keep going every day leaves me baffled!”, he says. “She has really impacted the way I interact with people, as you never know what is going on behind the scenes in someone’s life. And they can be acting entirely normally!”
Jack Bennett
We asked Jack what made him choose Bath and the course he is on.
The city is absolutely amazing and the people could not be more friendly. The only things that might have put me off was the seagulls, but as long as I eat indoors it’s never an issue! As for the course, the opportunity to undertake two work placements, six-months abroad, and to help incredible organisations such as After Umbrage was just too good to turn down.
Were you aware of the number of people caring for loved ones in the UK? What was your reaction when learning about the role of carers?
I imagined that there were quite a few in the UK, but never as many as 1/8! It made me realise that there are so many people out there acting as everyday heroes, and unfortunately, it goes incredibly unrecognised.
About the project, what part are you enjoying the most? Was it easy to come up with your group proposals?
We did quite a lot of research before deciding on our project, but we settled relatively quickly on a social media campaign and framework, with two booster fundraising events. As for the most enjoyable part, talking to the people behind After Umbrage has been great! Everybody at the charity is incredibly friendly and committed to their work helping carers, and it has been a really pleasant experience so far.
What are the challenges you have set yourselves? How are you doing so far? Meeting expectations? Finding it tougher/easier than you originally thought?
We have set some challenging targets for both fundraising and social media engagement, and we think we are on track to achieve them or at least come close. We have still yet to launch our social media campaign, however, we are very excited to do so! Therefore, we can’t really judge our success at this point but we are very excited to crack on.
What change or impact would you like your work to have?
I really hope we help more people understand the amazing work that After Umbrage is doing, and that we can create a social platform from which the charity can get a lot of attention.
Meet the Team
You can meet Lucas, Lily, Grace, Marta and Dom is upcoming posts here on our blog. Head over to meet them.
