A Bear Named Buttony has started a new project for young people after receiving a £1,000 funding boost.
The north-east charity, started by Jennifer Gow, has given out thousands of teddies to children with stomas.
A stoma is an opening on the front of the abdomen created during surgery to allow faeces or urine to exit the body and be collected in a bag on the outside of the body.
The charity’s recent £1,000 funding boost, from Ecclesiastical’s Movement for Good awards, will help launch a new project for teenagers that are perhaps too mature for a toy bear.
Members of the public were invited to nominate causes close to their hearts, with 500 gifts of £1,000 available for donation.
The charity will soon begin to give out bright wash bags containing a variety of goodies for young people, including a drawstring bag to hold emergency supplies, a small perfume or cologne, a positive information card and a note from a young person who has had a stoma for some time.
Jenny Gow, chairwoman of A Bear Named Buttony, said: “We are so grateful to Ecclesiastical and their Movement for Good Awards and to all our supporters who nominated us to receive an award.
“The work we do to raise awareness of living with a stoma is so important in helping break down some of the stigma and raise positive awareness.
“We are extremely excited about launching our Young Adult Project.
“We will work with paediatric stoma nurses throughout the UK to distribute our new packs as we do with our stoma bears. ”
NHS Grampian paediatric surgeon Chris Driver is patron of A Bear Named Buttony and knows the challenges a stoma can pose.
He said: “Having a stoma is difficult. Being a teenager is also difficult. Being a teenager with a stoma is doubly difficult.
“Young people don’t want to be different and the fantastic Buttony Young Adult Project will help them to manage their stoma with discretion and dignity.
“It helps in a small but important way to normalise what is far from normal.”
