The ESFA is delighted to announce the continuation of our partnership with The Oddballs Foundation for the 2022/23 season. The Oddballs foundation is the official charity partner of the ESFA and are on a mission to raise awareness of testicular cancer across schools in England.
ESFA Chair, Stuart Botham said: “The English Schools’ FA is delighted to be continuing this partnership with the Oddballs Foundation. The partnership has played a large role in increasing the awareness of testicular cancer in schools’ through face to face and online talks and we hope to grow this awareness of a very important subject going forward. We encourage as many of our members as possible to sign up for talks and help educate our young people through the amazing service that The Oddballs Foundation provides.”
Find out more about what The OddBalls Foundation offers and how to get involved, please see below:
The ESFA’s charitable partner, Grief Encounter, leading UK bereavement charity, provide free, professional bereavement services, including a national helpline for those experiencing grief. During the last 12 months, calls to their “Ëœgrieftalk’ helpline have been the busiest they’ve ever experienced, so the charity has launched a brand new covid-secure initiative to raise money, supporting the incredibly important services that they provide. We’d love it if you could help them too!
The ESFA are sharing Grief Encounters’ Forget-Me-Not Walk details in the hope that our schools and young people can come together, safely, to support the work carried out by the charity, which provides a hugely essential service to youngsters across the country.
How can you help?
Share these details to your teachers, parents and pupils to encourage them to get involved:
Registration costs £5 and each registered walker will receive a “Ëœforget-me-not’ walk baseball cap or dog bandana (!) plus a packet of forget-me-not seeds to plant on or after the walk.
You can create a forget-me-not walk JustGiving page, this can be for individuals or you could create a “Ëœwhole school’ page, where you can combine any donations you receive.
Support the campaign as a school, you could look at the key aspects of the campaign such as:
Health & wellbeing
Remembrance
Community Support
Could you base a lesson around grief encounter and the work they do (you can contact them directly for teaching resources) and then encourage your pupils (and staff!) to take part in the walk on Sunday 21 March?
3. Become Forget-Me-Not Walk Champions
Every person who shares the “Ëœforget-me-not’ walk details on their social media channels, by word of mouth or any other way, is already a champion, but could you or your school take it to the next level? Maybe you could invite your pupils to write stories, poems or songs about raising money for the cause? £26 funds a grieftalk helpline session – maybe you and your pupils could think about ways of using “Ëœ26′ to promote the walk too?
Head over to the Grief Encounter website for full details, the registration link and to find the JustGiving page that you can also personalise for individuals or the school. There is plenty more information on their website.
If you would like to become a forget-me-not walk champion, then please email [email protected] directly to register and discuss how you can help us support this fantastic cause.
If you would like to confidentially talk to the team at Grief Encounter please call freephone 0808 802 0111, they are there to listen every weekday 9am – 9pm.
