World Hospice and Palliative Care Day (WHPCD), this year on Saturday October 11, is an annual, unified day of action to celebrate and support Hospice and palliative care worldwide. The theme will be “Achieving universal coverage of palliative care: Who cares? We do!”

The aim of WHPCD is:

·         To share our vision of increasing the availability of Hospice and palliative care worldwide.

·         To raise awareness and understanding of the needs of people living with a life-limiting illnesses and their families, be it medical, social practical or spiritual needs.

·         To raise funds to support and develop hospice and palliative care services worldwide.

Each year, more than 60 countries take part in the festivities of WHPCD with activities such as fundraising events, public awareness campaign and advocacy meetings. In 2012, particularly, there were charity concerts, TV variety shows, conferences, hospice weeks and marathons.

In South Africa, in order to reach more people than ever before, particularly the youth, HPCA will be hosting a virtual event. The WHPCD celebrations will centre upon the Social Butterfly campaign, which was launched in August. The aim of the campaign is to create an easily recognisable symbol, elevating awareness of Hospice and palliative care in the country. HPCA have designed and produced temporary butterfly tattoos for the campaign.

In the run-up to October 11, Former South African national football and Leeds captain, Lucas Radebe, and South African Paralympic medallist and butterfly champ, Achmat Hassiem, palliative care ambassadors for HPCA, will be joined by various other celebrities sporting the tattoos. Pictures and news clips of this process will be posted to HPCA’s social media accounts: Pall10 (Facebook), HPCA_Tweets (Twitter) and hpca.sa (Instagram). Already there is a hive of activity:

·         There is a TV ad running on many of the television stations, urging the public to buy their tattoo at a cost of R20 from their local hospice, or Primi outlet.

·         Radio advertisements are playing on Primedia radio stations such as 702, Cape Talk, kfm and their other stations.

·         There have been, and will continue to be, radio interviews.

·         Magazine and newspapers will be placing the print ad with Lucas.

Primi, a restaurant chain with a national footprint of 37 major stores plus smaller outlets, have generously come on board as the distributer for the tattoos, with an enormous amount of excitement in their stores from their waiters.

We encourage all South Africans to visit their nearest hospice or Primi store to purchase their temporary butterfly tattoo at a price of R20, following which they can photograph themselves wearing and post it to any of HPCA social media sites. The funds, and awareness generated from this process will go a long way into ensuring that knowledge of palliative care is spread nation-wide.

For more information on WHPCD, click here

Social Butterfly Tattoos are available at hospices and participating Primi outlets

To order your Social Butterfly Tattoo, click here

{gallery}SocialButterfly{/gallery}