About Rainbows Hospice for Children and Young People
Rainbows is now in it's eighth year and continues to help over 250 families in the East Midlands.
Rainbows provides palliative, respite and terminal care for up to eight children and their families at any one time. Long-term care and support is vital to families with children requiring 24-hour care.
This year Rainbows has to raise nearly £2 million to remain open. Only 5.2 % of the money needed last year came from government funding.
"The Rainbows Hospice is a happy place where every new day is respected as an opportunity to celebrate life. We smile, we play but above all we provide a stimulating and loving place where families affected by the challenge of limited life can find refuge and respite."
When a child stays at the hospice they receive one on one care. Nowhere in the NHS or anywhere else provides this care despite it being essential for many parents - it is often the only lifeline available to help them through this difficult journey.
Image if you knew that your child wasn't going to live a full life.
It's then you realise that every minute of every day is a precious opportunity simply to live.As any parent will tell you, to look into the eyes of a sick child is a deeply moving experience.
To know your child has a limited life must be the greatest human challenge any of us could face. Nobody can know when, or even if, they may face this life-changing dilemma. If it ever did Rainbows would be there.
Our history
Rainbows Children's Hospice is now in its ninth operational year. The land for the hospice was donated to a local couple who had lost a child. The couple had already raised £1.6 million to open a special children's cancer ward at the Leicester Royal Infirmary and then gone to raise funds to fund a bereavement centre.
The couple then continued to fundraise within the local and business community so that the hospice could be built. The hospice opened in 1994 and has helped over 250 families who have had children with a life limiting illness.