On the 12 August 2014, the Hospice Palliative Care Association ( HPCA) launched its very first social butterfly tattoo campaign.
It was a warm winter’s afternoon that hospice staff, representatives from the Department of Health, medical professionals and media came together to celebrate the launch of the HPCA Social Butterfly campaign at Den Anker in the V&A Waterfront. Rejeanne Vlietman, owner of this beautiful Belgain restaurant, generously sponsored the event in memory of her late mother. Lucas Radebe, former Leeds and Bafana Bafana captain who is a national brand ambassador for HPCA, had his tattoo applied by Dr Liz Gwyther, CEO of HPCA and vice-chair of the Worldwide Palliative Care Alliance. Radebe, who experienced hospice care when he his wife and father to cancer, was the first celebrity to don his tattoo. Guests then applied their temporary tattoos and gathered together with Table Mountain as a backdrop for a commemorative team photograph of the first butterflies.
The Social Butterfly campaign has been designed to elevate awareness of Hospice and palliative care nationally by creating a butterfly as an easily recognisable symbol for the association. The butterfly is the icon of HPCA internationally. It symbolises personal transformation because of the impressive process of metamorphosis it goes through. Butterflies teach us that change in our life is inevitable; however, they do not have to be traumatic. Rather we should unquestioningly embrace personal transformation and the changes of our environment and body, as difficult as it may be, as casually as the butterfly does.
HPCA has designed and produced temporary tattoos which will be used throughout the duration of the campaign, which runs until World Hospice and Palliative Care Day on October 11, 2014, and will be held annually.
Hospices nationally will get involved in this wonderful event by encouraging the public to purchase temporary tattoos, wear them and take a “selfie” to be uploaded by social media using the hashtag #socialbutterfly. We would then ask that you tag HPCA South Africa via their social media pages:
Facebook – like our Pall10 page
Twitter – @HPCA_Tweets
Instagram – hpca.sa
