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Zest’s Mission.
We support young people who have an incurable illness to live positively.
Did you know that many more young people aged 14 - 25 with an incurable illness are now living longer?
Thanks to improvements in medicine, care and science, there are a lot of young people living with an incurable illness or condition for longer than anticipated. This is wonderful news, however this poses a problem when it comes to providing the right care and support for these individuals, and their families.
It means that tragically these young people get forgotten. With a lack of support available for them and their extremely complex conditions, most fall through the gap between children’s services, like Each Anglian Children’s Hospice, and adult services like St Elizabeth Hospice. Parents, carers and families struggle on, alone and lost in a complicated health care system.
Which really, is just not ok.
So we are taking a stand! We are breaking the mould, changing St Elizabeth Hospice up and making it a place for young people, where they and their families can come and access the care and support that they need to live positively. And this is where Zest comes in!
At St Elizabeth Hospice we provide hospice care for anyone over the age of 14, however many of our facilities are designed with older adults in mind.
We recognise that a different approach is required in how we offer services and opportunities for young adults and created ‘Zest’ to focus how we offer care and grow support, for this age group going forward which needs our support more and more.
We recognise that this group of our community has needs that are not being met by children’s services or by adult care, especially in the eastern region, and we’re determined to make sure that doesn’t continue – and who better to make this happen than young adults themselves. They know what they want, but, more importantly, they know what they need.
Through Zest, we've created an environment for young adults and families to raise the money to be able to provide the services this group so desperately needs.
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Thank you to Ed Sheeran!
Ed recently donated over 300 personal items to be auctioned in support of Zest. The auction which took place Saturday 10 November raised over £50,000 - an amazing result.
