Students and staff get on their dancing shoes to promote charity

Third year Radiotherapy and Oncology students and staff have come together to raise awareness of a cancer charity.

LoveOliver was set up by Andy and Jennifer Gill after their son passed away at just 24 weeks old to a Malignant Rhabdoid Tumour back in 2010.

Students Aimee Ellis, Aoife Macrae and Caitlin McClorey were at the heart of organising a lockdown video to help promote the great work of the charity...and to show off their dancing skills.


How did the relationship start with LoveOliver and why did you want to help promote them?

Aimee: “Jennifer from LoveOliver came into our class and gave a presentation about what the charity do and how they help families in Scotland.

We’re obviously learning about cancer on our programme but amongst all the technical stuff you don’t actually see it from a parent’s perspective, so it really changed our thought process towards everything."

Caitlin: “As Aimee says, we don’t actually see a lot of kids being treated on our placement and her presentation really opened our eyes to what parents go through with it and how the charity can help.”

Aoife: “They provide a lot of practical and financial support to children and families going through cancer. It really resonated with us because Jennifer had been through it with her son Oliver and the whole thing was really personal.

It was such a touching story and really sad. For them to go out and do what they have is inspirational and so brave.”


What made you decide to raise awareness through a video?

Aoife: “It was actually our lecturer who suggested doing the video and I’m the really annoying one that was pestering everyone and messaging them to get involved!”

Aimee: “We have obviously all been stuck at home so there was nothing we could really all do together in person - this gave us this opportunity to do it as a group from our own homes.”


There was a lot of staff and students involved throughout the video - how big is the community feel within the programme and how important is that?

Caitlin: “We’re definitely quite a small course, so we’re all really friendly and close, which made perfect sense for everyone to get involved together.

Obviously cancer is quite a heavy topic for us to be studying, so having the support of each other has been crucial and that’s something that’s definitely continued during lockdown.”


You can watch the video featuring a variety of Radiotherapy and Oncology students and staff here

By Ross Clark
Got an SHLS or GSBS story? Email me at Ross.Clark@gcu.ac.uk or message me on Twitter