MoveForME: Help me raise £10,000 for the ME Association

My name is Catherine and I live with a condition called ME (Myalgic Encephalomyelitis). ME, also known as CFS (chronic fatigue syndrome), is a multisystemic disease. Symptoms include profound fatigue, sleep disturbance, post-exertional malaise, cognitive difficulties and a range of other symptoms including pain, headaches, tinnitus, nausea and intolerance to lights and noise.

It is estimated that at least 404,000 people in the UK have ME/CFS. In addition, 950,000 people unable to recover from a Covid infection could meet the diagnostic criteria for ME/CFS, which could mean that 1,350,000 adults and children in the UK are affected by ME/CFS.

It’s a disabling, misunderstood illness that takes away energy, independence and often the ability to move at all. Most people move through their day without thinking about it. But for people living with ME, even small amounts of movement can cause severe and lasting crashes that leave us unable to function. Rest doesn’t restore energy: it is survival.

It was a conversation with my 9 year old that sparked the idea for this campaign. She asked me “if you could swap bodies with me and be in my body for the day, what would you do?” I replied saying “I’d go for a run, swim, hike up to the moor and mooch around our town. I’d get a dog and take it for long walks and I’d meet up with my friends in a cafe or go explore somewhere new”

I cannot walk, run, swim, hike, cycle, travel, explore, gather or move the way I once could and it's the small things that I miss the most. So this ME Awareness Month, I’m asking you to MoveForME. The aim of the campaign is to help raise awareness and £10,000 for the ME Association, which supports people living with ME and works to improve understanding, research and patient care.

The MoveForME Challenge

During ME Awareness Month (May), I’m inviting you to move in any way you can - be it walking, stretching, playing, pedalling, dancing, going for a picnic, or simply sharing a get-together with friends and donating what you’d normally spend on coffee. You can choose to move once, weekly, or throughout the month of May and you can wear blue whilst you move too.

Every act represents the freedom and physical participation that people living with ME/CFS are so often denied

You could perhaps plan a day where your school, workplace or organisation turns ‘blue’ to recognise that for many people living with ME accessing school, education and work isn’t possible.

Or if you are part of a community group, sports club or team consider for one of your meet ups, matches or sessions wearing blue and asking people to donate to the #MoveForMe2026 challenge.

What about hosting a blue inspired book club, event or coffee get together with friends?

Small actions matter, and every act of movement, no matter how small, becomes an act of solidarity. Seeing people move for me helps me feel less invisible. It reminds me, and others living with ME/CFS, that our lives still matter, even when we can’t participate in the world the way we once did.

Share and spread awareness

We’d love to see your efforts throughout May. Please share a photo of your movement, gathering and turning blue on social media and use: #MoveForME2026

You can add this to your post:

This May, move for someone who can’t. Join #MoveForME2026 and help raise awareness and funds for people living with ME.

Make sure to tag the ME Association and me too:

Instagram: meassociation

www.facebook.com/meassociation

Instagram: catherine.asta | TikTok: Catherine Asta

Still Living

I also invite you to read my book ‘Still Living’ to understand more about my own experience of this misunderstood illness, which is being published to coincide with ME Awareness month.

Still Living is a radically honest memoir of the mountains we never choose to climb and what it means to find our way home to ourselves in the aftermath. Through the guiding metaphor of a mountain, I trace my intimate journey through breast cancer, chronic illness, ME and identity rupture to explore what healing can look like when life has been irrevocably changed and rearranged.

This is not a story about being ‘fixed’ or restored. It is a story about the slow cultivation of a new ecosystem of self in altered ground. A remembering that we carry within us the embodied intelligence to begin again - even in the harshest terrain.

Tender, wise and deeply compassionate, Still Living offers strength, solace and a new language for life beyond survival. An invitation to rewild the self not by returning to who we once were, but by honouring who we are still becoming.

Thank you for moving for ME

Know that every movement you take helps make an invisible illness visible and reminds those of us living with ME that we are seen.

Thank you for moving for me.

Catherine:-)

P.S You can also donate without taking part in the challenge.