CymraegFTWW & Cardiff University Work Together to Illustrate Symptoms of Endometriosis – 3o, January 2018.
FTWW members from across Wales were proud and excited to be involved in a new and exciting method of collecting evidence around their experiences of endometriosis this week – a workshop using arts and comics to ‘draw out’ their personal stories, with the ultimate aim of producing an informative booklet to help increase awareness about the condition.
As part of Welsh Government’s Task & Finish Group for Endometriosis, we have been working closely with representatives of Cardiff University School of Psychology, to fully gauge and represent the patient experience to ministers and NHS Wales executives. Professor Jacky Boivin, alongside medical student, Hannah Kingwell, were the workshop leads, and FTWW was pleased to enable a full house of participants, with 14 women travelling the length and breadth of Wales to attend.
The idea behind the workshop was to carry out various drawing exercises which would then stimulate conversations around endometriosis and the participants’ experiences of the condition. The short visual narratives created allowed those women present to share their views and feelings in a relatively informal way, one that didn’t require them to be expert public speakers.
The main findings will be disseminated in the form of a comics booklet. Due to their visual nature, these formats are expected to be more appealing to a broader audience than scientific publications. FTWW believes this can only be a good thing: the broader the audience, the more we can anticipate patients, public, doctors, teachers – and government – understanding just how important it is to improve the treatment of those girls and women suffering endo across Wales.
Huge thanks to everyone who joined us.
Keep your eye on our website for updates!
