Cleft Lip and Palate Awareness Week 2021: Thank You!
This Cleft Lip and Palate Awareness Week, we asked you to help us celebrate difference by sharing your stories, sharing our posts and stepping up to help us fund our vital support services.
With every post shared and every penny raised, you’ve helped us make sure that no one goes through their cleft journey alone.
- On Facebook, you shared our posts 2,200 times and helped us to reach an incredible 284,000 people!
- On Twitter, your retweets got our infographics and videos seen 250,000 times – that’s 500% more than usual!
- On Instagram, our posts were seen 120,000 times by 6,600 people.
- 75 of you joined our Step Up for CLAPA Challenge.
- On Facebook and Just Giving alone, your fundraisers have raised over £22,000!
To every single one of you who got involved, we’d like to say a huge THANK YOU!
Join us now as we look back on a week of story-sharing, myth-busting and awareness-raising. We hope you enjoyed it as much as we did!
Saturday 8th May
On Saturday, we kicked off with a word from our Patron Carol Vorderman, who explained why cleft awareness is so close to her heart.
CLEFT AWARENESS WEEK starts TODAY. My brother has severe cleft, so we’ve been a “cleft family” forever ❤️❤️
As Patron of @CLAPACOMMUNITY pls watch this video and see how you can help. Not by giving money but just by understanding cleft a little bit more ❤️https://t.co/xyOlH06h8D https://t.co/UcUDd97rVF— Carol Vorderman 💙 (@carolvorders) May 8, 2021
Sunday 9th May
Sunday set a new record for shares (over 900!) as we busted five common myths about cleft lip and palate. Thank you to everyone who shared your own stories and perspectives along the way.
Monday 10th May
Monday saw the first of our ‘Celebrating Difference’ video series, with Iona, Claudia and Ed discussing what it’s like to tell others about their cleft, and some of the strangest misconceptions they’ve encountered.
We look forward to creating more videos like this in the future covering a whole range of topics.
Tuesday 11th May
On Tuesday, we turned things over to our Children and Young People’s Council (CYPC), who gave us their answers to the question ‘What would a world which truly celebrated difference look like to you?‘
View this post on Instagram
Wednesday 12th May
In the second of our ‘Celebrating Difference’ video series, Iona, Claudia and Ed discussed the brighter side of being born with a cleft, and the ways in which they feel it’s made them stronger and more compassionate to others.
Thursday 13th May
On Thursday, we gave a crash course in cleft terminology and busted a few more myths along the way. Thank you to to the 620 people who shared this post on Facebook alone and helped us educate a whole new audience of people about how to talk about cleft lip and palate.
View this post on Instagram
Friday 14th May
Cleft is about much more than the first repair surgery when a baby is very young. With a treatment pathway of 20+ years, many people born with a cleft grow up facing difficult decisions around how to take control of their own cleft care, including further surgery.
In this video, Iona, Claudia, and Ed chat through their experiences of navigating the world of cleft care as adults, and discuss how it can be tough to find the right support from friends and family who weren’t born with a cleft themselves.
Saturday 15th May
Katie is an artist who uses her skills to create portraits and start conversations about cleft. As part of this year’s theme of ‘celebrating difference’, we spoke to Katie about the power of art in awareness-raising.
View this post on Instagram
Sunday 16th May
In the final video of our ‘Celebrating Difference’ series, Iona, Claudia and Ed answer the question ‘What would a world which truly celebrated difference look like to you?’
Throughout #CleftLipAndPalateAwarenessWeek, we’ve been reflecting on this question: ‘What would a world which truly celebrated difference look like to you?’
In this video, Claudia, Iona, and Ed share their answers. What would that world look like to you? 💭 🌍 pic.twitter.com/qPTEiU4xFr
— CLAPA Community (@CLAPACOMMUNITY) May 16, 2021
Thank you for helping us to celebrate difference this Awareness Week!
What’s Next?
Make your voice heard
This brand new group is your chance to give feedback on different aspects of CLAPA’s work, as well as being the first to hear about new research opportunities.
Sign up today and you’ll be alerted to various flexible opportunities to share your thoughts and experiences to help improve cleft care and support in the UK.
Help CLAPA keep going
The way the cleft community has come together to support us after such a difficult year for everyone has been nothing short of inspiring. But to make sure we’re there for everyone who needs us in the next year, we need to raise £25,000 each month in donations and sponsorship money. Can you help us make sure no one ever has to go through their cleft journey alone?
