A guest article by Lucie Žáčková from Nedoklubko

HELP US WITH HEART – one campaign, two meanings. The first is to provide Nedoklubko with hand-made and heart-shaped gifts. The second is to help mothers of preterm infants with heartfelt support.

The aim was to give mothers something cute, beautiful, and in dark purple, the colour of Nedoklubko. The idea of purple hearts was born. For World Prematurity Day 2017, hundreds of women provided us with more than 10,000 little knitted socks representing the number of babies who are born preterm in the Czech Republic every year. Nedoklubko approached these knitting women from all over the country with the crocheting idea and met with a great response.   

Details of the campaign
The project consists of three parts: the first part is to collect the purple hearts from the women who crocheted them voluntarily. Nedoklubko cooperated with a producer of purple cotton and thus was able to provide the material for fee. The second part is to sale some of the hearts in line with our fundraising activities e.g. on several events. The third part is a brochure – a special edition of the organisation’s magazine You are not alone with the subtitle “Psychological support for the parents after preterm birth”. Authors of the brochure are doctors, nurses and parents who went through the experience of preterm birth.

Nedoklubko furthermore is going to distribute gift packages in all NICUs in the Czech Republic. Each package contains a copy of the brochure and a purple heart. The goal is to provide psychological support to mothers and fathers as soon as possible after the preterm birth of their child. The campaign is accompanied by further activities like creative workshops for children where they can make a paper heart with an encouraging message for little babies in hospitals.

For Lucie Žáčková, Chairwoman of Nedoklubko, the two main prerequisites for realising this campaign were 1) a good idea and 2) cooperations with appropriate people.  The first idea for this campaign were developed in March during a meeting with local coordinators of Nedoklubko. For them, already existing presents were not ideal and they were looking for a more emotional gift.

Outcome
HELP US WITH HEART is a long-term campaign with the goal of less stressed, more satisfied, and better informed parents. In addition, Nedoklubko wants to let the parents know that the organisation would like to support them in their challenging situation.

Contact details for further information: Lucie Žáčková zackova(at)nedoklubko.cz 

Special thanks to
Lucie Žáčková
Nedoklubko z.s.
www.nedoklubko.cz