Occasionally I lend my blog to my friends. Friends that need a space to shout, friends that need a space to be anonymous from their world, friends that need a bit of support, friends that are doing good in the world. This is one of those occasions. I'd love for you to read Tracy's post and help out at the end if you can. Thanks.
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Hello! It’s Tracy here, friend and
massive fan of Nickie and her world, just adore her blog and everything that
she does. Anyway! I've asked to come on here and share a wee bit about my most
recent awesome experience - Nickie very kindly obliged, so here goes.
It’s Monday the 13th of
May, late in the evening, and yesterday I completed the Glasgow Women’s 10k
with my amazing friend Lynn - we did it in one hour twelve minutes, and we are
very proud of this given it was our first 10k race. A great wee achievement,
and a real honour and privilege to see so many other women complete it too. If
you haven’t done this race before I’d highly recommend it - the route weaves
through gorgeous parts of Glasgow, and thousands of locals turn out to cheer
and shout words of encouragement. The sense of support and respect from all the
other participants feels so tangible, and Lynn and I still managed to have a
good proper gossip all the way round! What’s not to love?!
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| Image Credit | Channel 4 |
Now, the reason why I feel so
strongly about supporting the work that Katie Piper does is because of the
impact she has made on everyone’s perceptions of burns, scars, disfigurements,
and disabilities. In the 30 odd years that I've had this scar, I have never
known such a powerful change in people’s interest and curiosity in the story
behind how it got there, since Katie started filming, publicising, sharing
other‘s stories the whole mindset has changed. Whereas some people used to avert
their eyes, point, gasp, mumble, now a unique mark is something to be proud of,
something fascinating, something that absolutely should not be covered up or
hidden for the sake of other people‘s reactions. And that, to me, is awesome!
And I must point out - even with my
own shark bite, erm I mean burn, I would still have moments of eye averting,
the odd pointing - we all have, we’re only human. (Never a point and gasp
though - I remembered how horrible I felt when it happened to me all too well…)
Not now though, now I want to know their story, I’m fascinated, and want to
know the story behind it. Human nature promotes curiosity, and I feel that the
polite (and sometimes not so polite) oppression has lifted now in a very
positive way. I welcome questions, queries etc - again, the Katie effect, and
while I can’t speak for every burn/mark/scar owner I’m pretty sure that
anything you would want to ask is welcomed.
I’m now a very eager and
enthusiastic volunteer for The Katie Piper Foundation, and I hope to carry out
much more fundraising and awareness raising. I've asked Nickie to post this in
the hope we can have a discussion about the subject matter as I’d love to hear
your thoughts and views on your own body perception, any scars you have, how
they have impacted on your sense of self, how you feel about Katie Piper and
her story, anything at all!
Some links I’d love you to have a
look at -
- Firstly, my Just Giving page; if you’d like to make a donation I’d be utterly delighted, every penny is going to such a worthwhile cause!
- Secondly, my friend Lynn’s JustGiving page; she’s raised an astounding amount!
- And last, but most important - Katie’s website, where you can see what she’s achieved, how much of an impact she has had on people, and where the charity hopes to go forward.
Lots
of love from Tracy xxx
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PS from Nickie. You can follow Tracy on twitter as @TracylovesEdie - show her a bit of tweet-love.
PPS from Nickie. Regular readers will have 'met' Tracy before on my blog. She has guest posted about Drugs, Alcohol, Prostitution and Families and I used a text from her to ask a WWYD question about make-up for children.