This award celebrates unusual, innovative or creative ways to promote knowledge and understanding around death, dying or bereavement.
Since 2016 the Scottish Centre for Comics Studies has been researching and created comics for educational purposes. During that time they have pioneered the creation public education comics on topics related to dying and bereavement.
These have included The Gift (2018), a project led by Mayra Crowe concerning experiences and policy regarding organ donation; When People Die: Stories for Young People (2019), led by Dr Golnar Nabizadeh. This comic was the result of workshops with young people who had experienced bereavement and wanted to create comics to help other young people in similar circumstances; Close to the Heart (2020), by Dr Megan Sinclair, about her experience of losing her father to heart disease. Find out more here: Dundee University Centre for Comic Studies.
Supporting Bereavement (2022), led by Mayra Crowe and Professor Christopher Murray.
Image from Supporting Bereavement comic, artwork by Catriona Laird.
The Dying in the Margins project began in 2019, with the aim of uncovering the reasons behind unequal access to home dying for people experiencing financial hardship and socio-economic deprivation in Scotland. Over the four years, the project has worked closely with people experiencing financial hardship at the end of life, their carers, and health and social care professionals to understand the profound effect that people’s socio-economic circumstances can have on their end-of-life experiences.
Throughout the study, people with lived experience of financial hardship and serious advanced illness were supported to take images that tell their story of dying at home in Scotland. Award-winning Scottish photographer Margaret Mitchell was commissioned to create a body of work reflecting on participants’ stories and emotions. In addition, bereaved carers were supported to create ‘digital stories’ about their loved ones’ experience of financial hardship at the end of life, with help from filmmaker Lucas Chih-Peng Kao. The project recently launched a free public exhibition called the ‘Cost of Dying’ to showcase the photographs and digital stories produced through the research. Find out more here: Dying in the Margins
This award nomination recognises some of the innovative projects delivered and underway as part of the St Columba's Hospice Care Child & Family Service, including the ‘GRESCO Agape’ project, through which St Columba's worked with George Heriots School and Elliniki Paideia High School and Galilee hospice in Greece; a collaboration with Musselburgh Grammar and Midlothian’s Young People’s Advice Service called “Walk a Mile in Mine" to help young people explore and express how to convey to others how it might feel to walk a mile in their shoes; a collaboration between St Columba's and Victoria Primary School working with P6 to learn about the Bereavement Charter for Children, Young People and Adults in Scotland and to work with them to create a local school charter. Find out more here: St Columba's Hospice care Child & Family Service
