Hi there,
I am new to the site and have already found lots of things I am interested in being discussed! All very exciting.
I wanted to share a little about an Association I am a member of here in France, it is called CSF - short for Cancer Support France and it has branches throughout the country. I am the Vice President of the Languedoc branch and we are the newest branch of CSF to open.
CSF was set up to help and support English speaking people affected by cancer (that includes family, friends, carers as well as people who have cancer), regardless of their country of origin.
There are many fantastic initiatives going on within CSF at the moment, of which our branch is at the forefront of many (being a dynamic lot here in the South). But principally all branches of CSF offer services such as Active Listening, Translation and personal support, all free of charge.
Our branch of CSF also make visits to see clients while they are in hospital, provide and research resources that are requested by clients (housekeeping, driving, shopping, etc. to finding out what specific benefits people are entitled to and so on), we do our best to help people in any way we can.
Many people have asked - what about other illnesses and OUR branch of CSF has decided that we will help people with other illnesses where we can, although this is not necessarily done by all branches as each branch is it's own individual.
If you are interested in supporting or becoming a member of CSF - the first thing to do is find out where your nearest branch is by looking on the National CSF website www.cancersupportfrance.info many of the local branches also have their own website, ours is www.csf-languedoc.com
Branches generally require people to train as Active Listeners & Translators, but we also need help with fundraising, publicity and administration.
Within our branch we have two types of members - Friends of CSF-Languedoc, who pay their annual membership fee of 10€ and are invited to attend events and Active members, who work on the coal face - organising fundraising events, raising awareness, working as Active Listeners or Translators or in the administration department.
I have added CSF as a group so please join!
Thanks for reading
Sara x