The Robins Project

The Robins Project aims to celebrate the lives of children and adults facing life-threatening conditions by providing professional photography sessions, free-of-charge. Visit the Robins Project Website 



We have been photographing families for over ten years but last year I was asked to photograph a family, whose teenage daughter had terminal cancer. I'll never forget that day, walking into the unknown and not even really knowing how I would cope, emotionally, but the session wasn't focused on death or dying, it was focused on family, on joy, on having fun and climbing trees and by the end, throwing berries at each other! It was the greatest honour to work with Sophie and her family and to capture such treasured moments. Not long after this session, The Robins Project was born.

Sadly,  Sophie passed away December 10th 2020. Sophie's Mum,  Helen said this about the session "Thank you for your part in helping us capture some memories of Sophie. We look on the photos and smile at the memories of her quirkiness and brilliant attitude to life" 

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What is The Robins Project?
The Robins Project aims to celebrate the lives of children and adults facing life-threatening conditions. This also extends to parents who are experiencing  life-threatening or terminal illness, who may have children between 0-18 years old.  We do this by providing professional photography sessions, free-of-charge, to families in need. 
 
We are passionate about providing this service because families caring for a sick child or relative are often financially impacted and cannot afford professional photography services. In many cases, this option is not accessible to them due to in-patient status or inability to leave their home environment. Often, just due to the complexity of having a child or relative with a terminal illness, families are not even able to entertain the idea of a professional photography session. 

​We don't want our photographs to tell a bleak story about the illness or death. Thats not the story. We want the photographs to change the conversation around death by focusing on the opposite: joy, family, and what it means to truly live. When someone is facing a terminal illness, families come together and special moments happen. The Robins Project offers the ability to capture these times spent together. 


Why Go-Fund Me?
This Go-Fund me page was set up to help raise the funding necessary to grow 'The Robins Project'  We have a number of objectives we hope to achieve with the help of this funding. This includes;

- To gain non profit status 

- To provide photography to families at no cost 

- Marketing material in order to promote The Robins Project 


How YOU can help 
The Robins project relies on donations, sponsors and the generosity of the community and individuals. Without this support we would not be able to provide the sessions to the families, free of charge. TRP relies solely on donations to keep the sessions going. If you would like to donate or sponsor a session you can do so here.

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Who can refer?
The short answer, anyone. Doctors, social workers and nurses can tell you about The Robins Project but anybody can refer to us. We do ask that before you refer, the parents and family must give verbal consent to the photos. By allowing anyone to refer to us it gives an opportunity for the community to offer something of compassion to those families in need. If you prefer your referral to be sent to us anonymously you must ensure that you have the permission of the parents/family before the photography session can take place. 

Due to the nature of the session the families may decide to have them done sooner rather than later. This can allow for a greater depth to the session, because the child or adult may still have the opportunity able to go outside and be able to enjoy it. This can help the family have a reminder of happier times and not just simply a reminder of death or time of death. However, if towards the end of life and the family wanted, we can provide a more intimate session. 

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Looking Ahead  
Our biggest goal for The Robins Project is to expand. First locally and if we can serve the families first,  make them the priority, we strongly believe the money to make this happen, will come and we can help start helping families. 


The Robins Project and Covid-19 
The safety of the beneficiary and their families is of the upmost importance, so to ensure that, we are unable to conduct any sessions while the current restrictions of lockdown are in place. We hope that this changes very soon as  life-threatening and terminal illness does not stop because of Covid-19. We will be working with the guidelines and the advice to ensure that as soon as we can restart the sessions, we will do so. Once the sessions restart, please be reassured that we will be following all of the guidelines on PPE, social distancing and the use of sanitiser. 

Please help us spread the word about The Robins Project. You can like us on FACEBOOK , follow us on INSTAGRAM and TWITTER.