Angels in the Media - AIM

HELP US TAKE AIM AT SIDS AWARENESS

If you would like to join the AIM group at Yahoo Groups please visit http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/angelsinthemedia/.

The AIM group is solely for mail regarding the AIM campaign. Approximately once a week you will receive an email telling you who AIM target is for that week, and you can openly discuss possible targets and feedback from previous targets with other AIM members.

Once you have the address you can then write your personalized letter. You can use the same letter each week if you'd like, but a form letter will not be provided to you, as the uniqueness of each story is important. Anyone can help provided they have been personally touched by SIDS in some way. Points you might like to include in your letters could be:

• How you were treated by others after the baby's death.
• What support you received (or lacked) from official organizations.
• If you're interested in reports on where funding donated to the SIDS organizations is spent to help families who have lost a baby, you might want to mention that in your letter as well.
• Whether or not you feel that the support you received was beneficial or if you feel you needed more than was offered.
• Your story, how this has affected your life forever, mentioning police and hospital treatment.
• Perhaps tell them what you knew of SIDS before the baby's death, to demonstrate, if possible, that there is a need for more awareness.
• Write what you feel needs to be said through the media.
• If you've tried to contact newspapers and have been turned away, you could state how that made you feel.
• Perhaps you could mention that as a parent it's disheartening to see report after report on SIDS only when it involves suspicion of the parents or caregivers.
• Include statistics if you're inclined to do so.
• Perhaps mention anything you have seen in print or on television with regards to SIDS, whether or not you feel there is enough or too little information about SIDS.
• What types of things you feel should be mentioned in an awareness campaign.
• For those of you who make SIDS Awareness ribbons, perhaps you could include one with your letters, or even a print out of your baby's picture.
• You could also mention that this is an initiative of a group of families through the SIDS Families email support group and website.
• How you believe they can help spread SIDS Awareness.

Please try to have your letters in the mail within 3 days of receiving the target address, so that the person(s) we are mailing each week will receive a bulk of letters about the same time, hopefully making more of an impact. The target address is sent out by Friday, which gives you the weekend to compose your letter to be mailed on the following Monday.

Marta has asked that if you are no longer writing letters that you please unsubscribe from the group, as she would like an accurate number of letters going out each week.

If you have any questions, please direct them to:

• Melissa Email:  This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it
  

• Marta Email:  This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it