How to raise awareness from home
This blog outlines some of the ways you can still get involved with raising awareness of pancreatic cancer, despite the current nationwide lockdown.
As the country continues into another week of the nationwide ‘lockdown’, many of us face the prospect of spending a great deal of time at home. We wanted to assure you that despite this, there are several ways to still raise awareness of pancreatic cancer, without even having to leave the house.
How COVID-19 has affected our awareness campaigns
With ongoing efforts to slow the spread of the coronavirus, the latest restrictions put in place to reduce gatherings and promote social distancing, have for obvious reasons significantly affected the number of awareness activities we have been able to run.
In order to overcome this, and to ensure that vital awareness is still raised throughout the UK, we have worked hard to adapt our awareness campaigns, placing a larger focus on online rather than out in public spaces.
Raising awareness at work
Raising awareness at work is a great way to ensure that your colleagues are familiar with the signs and symptoms of pancreatic cancer. We have made a couple of changes to this campaign to make it easier for mangers and staff to be able to access our services from home.
Workplace Webinars
We are regularly invited into a wide range of business to host our free occupational health talks, however, as this is not possible currently, we have opted to temporarily host these exclusively online. The talks are available as an online webinar/Zoom call and typically last from half an hour to an hour, based on your preference.
Our webinars are primarily held by our founder and CEO Ali Stunt, who can talk from her own personal experience with the disease, of which she is now a 12-year survivor. She also encourages audience engagement by holding a brief Q&A session after the presentation.
A free pre-recorded video is also available and can be easily placed on the company’s intranet or emailed around to co-workers.
Share awareness materials
As our awareness stands are currently unavailable, we have ensured that all our awareness materials are now downloadable and free. These easy to read and informative materials include posters, leaflets and patient stories.
Once downloaded you are welcome to share them in any way that you wish, whether it be on social media, on your company’s intranet, via email or by simply printing them off.
Share your story
If you’ve been affected by pancreatic cancer, whether you’re a patient, survivor, carer or family member, we would love to hear your story.
We believe that hearing someone else’s story can offer invaluable insight to other people that are affected by the disease, at any stage of their journey. They can also be incredibly informative to someone less familiar with pancreatic cancer and can greatly increase awareness.
Click below for more details on how to share your story and the different ways they are used to raise awareness.
Write a blog for PCA
If you feel as though you’d like to share your opinions or offer your advice on a specific topic, why not become one of our guest bloggers?
You’re free to write about whatever you’d like but here’s some ideas relating to the current situation for inspiration:
- Dealing with the coronavirus as a cancer patient/survivor
- Staying fit and healthy at home
- How to stay positive at home
- A positive story you would like to share
Please see our blog for more inspiration or get in touch via comms@panact.org with your ideas.
Get involved on social media
Social media is not only a great way to stay connected with friends and family whilst we’re stuck at home but can be an extremely effective way of raising awareness too.
It may seem obvious but by simply following us on your favourite platforms and sharing our latest campaigns, it will ensure that more people are aware of what we do here at PCA and we may be able to help more people that need it.
Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Check out our latest campaign Pyjamas for PanCan, don’t forget to upload your photos and nominate your friends and family!
Do you have an idea for raising awareness at home?
If you have your own unique idea for raising awareness at home, we would love to hear from you. Please get in touch via comms@panact.org.