Truacanta does Bruges

Truacanta does Bruges

Caroline Gibb, manager of The Truacanta Project, writes about the recent Truacanta trip to an international conference in Belgium

At the end of 2021, SPPC submitted an abstract for a workshop at the 7th Public Health and Palliative Care International Conference which was to take place in Bruges, Belgium in September 2022. We felt that the work of the Truacanta groups fitted perfectly into the theme of the Conference - Democratizing Caring, Dying and Grieving: Participation, Action, Understanding and Evaluation – and saw a fantastic opportunity to showcase that work on an international stage.

In April 2022, we found out that the abstract - The Truacanta Project: Building Compassionate Communities - had been accepted, and got to work preparing for the conference.

To keep the workshop true to the project, there were two key elements for us:

1. that the Truacanta groups were involved in designing the workshop and
2. that the Truacanta groups were involved in delivering the workshop.

We were fortunate to have enough funding to cover conference places, travel and accommodation for a number of Truacanta representatives. We asked groups to self-select representatives and apply to attend, and six people from four groups were able to come. We got to work on the logistics.

We then needed to decide what we would be doing for the workshop. We held an online Truacanta networking event in June, where we workshopped the workshop, and came away with a lot of good ideas. This was then moulded into a draft workshop plan, and we had another online meeting with just the Truacanta reps to finalise this plan.

And then, suddenly, it was September and all nine of us – three SPPC staff and six Truacanta reps - were winging our way to Bruges in various ways at various times, armed with felt-tips and flip chart paper and all staying in touch via a WhatsApp group.

The full conference was four days long – from Tuesday to Friday inclusive. We didn’t expect anyone to attend the full event; four days is a long time to take away from work or family commitments, on top of which flights fell at inconvenient times. What we asked was that for the time folk were there, they attended what they could, and shared their learning.

There were a few highlights for folk from the conference. Not least our very own Deborah from North Berwick getting a round of applause for asking excellent questions at one of the plenaries!

Others included the lecture on Homelessness and Poverty by Naheed Dosani from Canada, and the Great Crossing event (De Grote Oversteek), where hundreds of paper lanterns were placed on the canal as a way of remembering lost loved ones. People had the chance to write personal messages on the lanterns before they went on the water, and the crossing itself was a moving moment of reflection and offered, as Charli from North Berwick says, “a sense of belonging, something that bereavement doesn’t often achieve.” North Berwick Compassionate Community and Truacanta Perthshire have both been inspired to do something similar locally for this year’s To Absent Friends festival.

Helen from Say Something Dundee felt that the conference “underlined the importance for humans to feel they have a purpose, through all of life. Whether you are dying, grieving, working, caring,” and her biggest takeaway was “the value of building relationships in communities at all stages of life and how that eases conversations. And that these relationships can be built through arts, learning, conversations.” Karrie from Highland agrees with this and found that she made many meaningful connections through conversation over the course of the conference.

The Truacanta workshop was on the final day. We suspected this might not be the ideal slot, and unfortunately we were right – many people had already left the conference and attendance was very low. However, although small we had an international and very engaged group of delegates! All the delegates had lots of questions, and all left with some clear next steps to take. Everyone did a fantastic job delivering the workshop, and it really highlighted the amazing work all the groups have been doing over the last couple of years – there’s a lot to be proud of.

Indeed, Anne from Highland says “I think we can all be proud of what we’ve managed to achieve,” and that she is bringing back “inspiration and confidence in our own abilities,” while Charli says she felt pride “hearing the Truacanta projects across Scotland, recognising our own approach to participation, sharing and taking ideas from the groups, and connecting in person.” Emma from Perthshire echoed this saying she was proud of “the global presence at the workshop,” and that “it was really lovely to be part of the team.”

And actually, while delivering the workshop was the aim of the trip, another benefit for all of us was spending time together and bonding in person. We’ve all been part of the project since 2020, but until now we’d only all met up online. This was a lovely opportunity to get to know each other a bit better, and really feel like part of a team that is doing something special.

Getting to showcase all the wonderful compassionate community activity each group has been doing over last two years (during a pandemic!) –– not just to international conference delegates but to ourselves as well - was the icing on the cake.

For more information about the Truacanta Project please visit www.goodlifedeathgrief.org.uk/content/thetruacantaproject or email caroline@palliativecarescotland.org.uk