Families celebrate EidFest with Martin House

Yorkshire charity Martin House Children’s Hospice has celebrated Eid with a special party for families. Around 200 guests, made up of children and young people in the care of Martin House, along with their families, attended the EidFest party at Dixons City Academy in Bradford on Saturday 14 June.

The party, which had the theme ‘around the world’ saw children and their families enjoy craft activities themed to different parts of the world, global cuisine, and entertainment from rappers Metz N Trix, a dance workshop with drummers Punjabi Roots, and music from singer Carly.

There were also sensory stories, face painting, mehndi hand decorating, and the children were given goody bags and ‘passports’ so they could collect stamps as they went around the world at the party.

Steve Lawman, deputy director of clinical services at Martin House, said: “Around a third of the families we support celebrate Eid, so it’s important for us to mark this special time of year with them.

“Everyone had a wonderful time, and we’ve had lots of lovely feedback from families about how much they enjoyed themselves.

“We’d like to thank the team at Dixons City Academy for allowing us to use the school to host the party and supporting us on the day, and everyone who helped to make EidFest such a success.”

Every year, Martin House provides specialist palliative care to more than 550 children and young people from across West, North and East Yorkshire with life-shortening conditions.

Its care includes planned respite, symptom control and emergency stays, end of life care and bereavement support.

To find out more about Martin House, and how you can support it, visit www.martinhouse.org.uk.

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Martin House has been providing family-led care and support for babies, children and young people with life-shortening conditions since 1987 (life-shortening means the child or young person is not expected to live beyond young adulthood).

Every year we support over 550 children and young people, and their families plus around 200 bereaved family members across West, North and East Yorkshire, at our hospice, in hospitals and in families’ own homes.

The hospice, based in Boston Spa, has nine bedrooms in Martin House, and six in Whitby Lodge, which cares for teenagers and young people. Our services include specialist short stays, symptom control, emergency care, community care and end of life care.

Bereavement support is offered to families who have used Martin House, as well as to families whose child had a life-shortening condition but did not have the opportunity to use the hospice, or following a sudden death.

Martin House has three consultants in paediatric palliative medicine and also hosts two places to train future consultants, one of only around seven training centres in the UK.

There is no cost to any of the families using our services. It costs around £10.5 million a year to provide this care, the majority of which comes from voluntary donations and fundraising.

Registered Charity Number 517919