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Thank you to everyone who donated to our 2025 festive appeal!

Thanks to two generous funders, the CareTech Foundation and Sutaka UK, the first £3,000 donated to our appeal was matched and we’re delighted to have surpassed our target and raised £6,655 to help us support more unpaid carers like Selvam, who dedicate their lives to caring for their loved ones.

Imagine if...

Your father, your role model and respected official of the village council, one day had an accident which caused severe physical injuries including a head injury and left him barely conscious. He is bed bound, in and out of consciousness and doesn’t recognise you or his grandchildren.

You spend all your savings and sell your family’s jewellery to get him treatment, but doctors tell you that his recovery is unlikely and further efforts are a waste of time.

Your community tells you there is no hope for your father, he is a lost cause - you should stop wasting your time and money caring for him. But you can’t abandon him, he’s your father, so you go on caring and hoping.

This is Selvam’s story.

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Thank you for helping us raise £6,655 –
this could do all of the below:

  • Provide food for the children at four of our Community Caring Centres for one year
  • Support the health of 40 carers for a year through access to high quality treatment
  • Help 63 carers start a small business that fits around their caring responsibilities, and gets them earning again
  • Set up 50 Carers Groups which reduce loneliness and isolation, create social networks and support emotional well-being
  • Pay for 53 days of support from a counsellor, which will help around 477 carers

Although our appeal is now over, please give a gift if you can. Together, we can continue to bring support, recognition and respect to unpaid carers.

Selvam with his Carers Group

Spread warmth this festive season - help unpaid carers in South Asia who give everything for their loved ones

Selvam is from Tamil Nadu, India. He cares for his father Loganathan.

Our local charity partner Vasantham Federation met Selvam four years after his father’s accident. Selvam has a wife and two children and they were struggling financially, having spent so much on his father’s treatment, which wasn’t working.

Vasantham Federation arranged for Selvam to take his father for assessment by the district psychiatrist, who diagnosed him with PTSD from the accident and prescribed medication. Within six months Selvam started to notice changes in his father.

Selvam joined his local Carers Group. He was a very active member and was soon voted leader of the group. He was also elected by his peers to be the President of the Block Level Carers’ Federation. Selvam said of his Carers Group, “My Carers Group is my family - It makes me feel respected, acknowledged, included and supported”

“Our Carers Group is a place where we can talk and pour out our problems, issues and needs. Just talking starts to reduce the weight we carry. We also care, help and support each other because we realise that we share the same experiences and are of one family in spirit.”

Selvam

£30 could set up three Carers Groups to reduce loneliness and isolation, create social networks and support emotional well-being

The members of the Carers Group each contributed regularly to a group savings pot and when it came time to distribute the funds, Selvan was selected to receive a loan to help him with his small business.

He used this money to buy a new drill to help advance his work as an electrician. He is now able to earn enough to support his wife and children, as well as cover his father’s medication and ongoing treatment.

“Our Carers Group savings fund means we can contribute financially to our families, to the society and now everyone in our families and our community respects, acknowledges and appreciates our caring roles”

Selvam

£50 could help one carer set up a new small business to lift their family out of poverty

Selvam at work using a drill
Selvams father working outside
As well as being part of a Carers Group, Selvam benefited from visits from local counsellors who were trained through our project and supported Selvam in his journey of caring for his father.

“There was no one to comfort me, but Vasantham Federation gave me solace. Parimala Madam and Jaichandran Sir came to my home and comforted me. When no one else was there, their counselling was a great joy. Their support gave me hope.”

Selvam

Vasantham Federation also helped Selvam get a Disability ID card for his father, meaning he could receive the monthly disability pension which was a great help to the family, as his father had lost his income after the accident.

They helped enrol his father in the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), an Indian social security scheme that provides a guarantee of at least 100 days of paid employment in a financial year to adults who volunteer to do unskilled manual work.

This meant that as Selvam’s father gained back his strength and mobility he could start earning again, giving him back his dignity and allowing him to contribute to the family.

£100 could pay for four days of support from a counsellor, which helps around 36 carers

Selvam wants to spread this message:

“I am thankful that my father is stabilised now. Everyone in my community is acknowledging that my caring role, regular medication and family support made this huge change in him possible. This is a blessing which has come from the pain.

I want other people caring for their loved ones, to know that there is hope with the right treatment. Don’t give up on them. Vasantham Federation’s Carers Project with Carers Worldwide has helped me understand more about how to help my father and see that there is a way forward.”

Selvam

All of us who are touched by a caring experience need support, whoever and wherever we are.

Will you give your support to unpaid carers like Selvam and bring comfort and joy to their lives?

Ways you can support us this festive season