A former unpaid carer has been promoting Carers Week outside his home in Melksham East, drawing attention to the role unpaid carers play in the community.
Carers Week ran from 9th to 15th June and is an annual campaign raising awareness of caring and highlighting the challenges unpaid carers face.
To highlight these challenges locally, David Walker has displayed information boards outside the front of his home in Melksham East, with facts, figures and details about the life and role of an unpaid carer.
His passion follows his former 12 years’ experience of caring for his wife, Georgina, who had Alzheimer’s disease.
He said, “Though I am no longer a carer, I still support Carers Week and use my pavement frontage to publicise the event. In addition to drawing attention to the role full-time unpaid carers play in the community and the lack of support they receive, I feel it is also important to remember that caring doesn’t stop when the carer role does and that there needs to be more awareness of the support ex-carers need, especially mentally, emotionally and financially.”
In 2022, David was appointed Melksham’s Carers’ Champion and dedicated over a year to promoting Melksham as a carer-friendly town. He has also been a volunteer and director for Healthwatch Wiltshire and has volunteered at events to raise awareness of dementia.
“Many ex-carers will have become socially isolated due to their carer responsibilities and subsequently find it difficult to get back into the community in a way they feel comfortable with,” said David. “I feel strongly that there needs to be a greater focus on post-carer support.
“The boards outside my home have been a way to make passers-by stop, look and read.”
David’s work campaigning for carers and unpaid carers is ongoing; he has been a key voice within the community calling for the town council to complete the Sensory Garden in King George V Park.
Having made a sensory garden in his own home for Georgina, which David won first place for in the Melksham Gardens’ Competition, he understands the benefits of such a space for those with sensory needs.
The town’s sensory garden is due to be filled with scented and colourful plants, an accessible path and the refurbishment of the millennium mosaic.
Most recently, for last year’s annual gardens’ competition, David changed his garden into a ‘tranquillity and reflection space.’
