Meet Rosemary, a 'virtual campaigner'

How did you get involved with campaigning?

After mams death I found I had more time. I started going on to online forums such as Carers UK's forum. Other carers were so encouraging and gave each other so much support.Often its easier to talk to a stranger, people become 'faceless friends' on the Forum.

What does the Internet mean for you as a campaigning tool?

The Internet is a brilliant way to help bring about change.  Carers often use forums to build support for a campaign, and contact MPs and get them to take issues up.

You can also find out all sorts of information. A lot of carers don't start off as campaigners - they don't have the time, but maybe they need to know where to go for a particular service or who to contact.  When they do have more time, there's lots of opportunities to campaign, many people just need to know where to go.   That's where I, and others, can help.  I'm always being sent details of consultations and guidelines which are really relevant to carers.  I can highlight the links on the Forum, and direct carers to websites.  It saves them time and helps them find out about their rights.

Together with carers from other forums and groups,I've helped set up an Internet campaign group called ' Carer watch' - we're independent and act as a mouthpiece for carers to debate the issues that are important to them. We found one another on the web  and decided to join together to make ourselves heard. We have experience of the care system as it operates in the UK today and we consider it to be desperately under funded and not fit for purpose. We aim to provide a non-party-political campaign platform to change the way that opinion-formers, politicians and journalists think about carers.

What other ways can carers get issues raised?

I think you've got to take all the opportunties open to you. There are plenty of requests for carers' opinions at the moment. The New Deal for Carers is a good example, where the Government has been talking to carers about what needs to change. I went to the closing event, which Gordon Brown came along to, with Alan Johnson, the Health Secretary, and Ivan Lewis, Carers Minister.

I know that nothing will happen overnight, but after all the hype of these last 5 months and all the many reports and recommendations can this Government truly afford not to make a difference this time?  I want to believe Ivan Lewis when he said “Judge us on our actions not our words “. He has a potential six million jurors sitting on the sidelines waiting to pass that judgement.

Getting individual MPs onside is also effective. A new Parliamentary Inquiry on carers has just been announced and the committee of MPs who will be involved are independent of Government so they'll be able to scrutinise carers' information, benefits and services, and hold ministers to account.  People can get involved in this by sending in information to the Inquiry and contacting their MP.

Finally contacting the press. They can be powerful ally's for carers.

Take part in Carers UK online forum  - more...

Read about the Parliamentary Inquiry on Carers - more...

Carer watch: http://carerwatch.com

http://carerwatchdotcom.myfineforum.org/index.php