Caring enriches life

WOMEN attending Umduduzi Hospice Care for Children's fundraising breakfast at College House on Saturday, were taught about caring for others.

The breakfast was held to commemorate World Hospice and Palliative Care Day.

“This is a unified day to celebrate and support hospice and palliative care worldwide. The theme this year was 'Who Cares? We Do',” said Tracey Brand, co-founder of Umduduzi.

Guest speaker, Cherri Forsyth, gave a talk about how to enrich your life by caring for others, and said things hamper us from caring, such as a lack of authentic communication, the feeling that we don't have knowledge of people's hardships, being frightened of interfering, not having time or not knowing how to listen.

“We have lost our ability to care. Hospice cares, but do we care enough? Caring affects our physiological health, and when we care for others, it increases our self-esteem, lowers our blood pressure, decreases stress, depression, fatigue and negative thoughts. We have more friends, can tolerate pain well, we have more hope, vitality, are more optimistic and feel better about our lives. There is wisdom in the saying 'a problem shared is a problem halved'. Friends need to be treasured, they're like gold. As women we have an amazing capacity to give and can do tough things. We need to stay strong and top up our emotional batteries so we can give to others,” she said.

She encouraged women to be grateful for the small things in life and said you could not be grateful and unhappy at the same time.

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