Website for sick children praised

Post Pals puts people in touch with chronically-ill children

A young woman from Cornwall has won an award from Childline for a scheme to stop sick children feeling isolated.

Kat Ramsey, who is chronically ill herself, helped set up Post Pals, which invites people to send letters and emails to ill youngsters.

The 21-year-old from Newquay has been ill for 11 years and is currently in the Royal Cornwall Hospital at Truro with an infection.

She established Post Pals with two friends from an ME support group.

Positive benefit

The "happy post" service was set up by Miss Ramsey, Vikki George and Vicky Miles with a grant from the Prince's Trust.

Matty Woodley from Perranwell in Cornwall is one of many children who benefit from the scheme.

The nine-year-old was diagnosed with leukaemia and had to undergo a bone marrow transplant from his sister Emma.

Matty was in hospital in Bristol for five months. He received dozens of letters and thousands of e-mails from people who read about him on the Post Pals website set up by Miss Ramsey.

Although Matty is now at home and recovering well, he is still receiving mail from his Post Pals friends.

He says it stopped him from feeling left out when he was in hospital and allowed him to keep in touch with people.

Kat Ramsey says the website idea was a 'simple concept'

Kat Ramsey says it was her own experience in hospital which gave her and her friends the idea for the website.

She said: "We'd all had a lot of positive benefit from receiving post from friends and people we knew and some we didn't.

"It was a good way to make friends and it was nice to look forward to the postman coming every day. It was such a simple concept."

Now Miss Ramsey, who has previously been shortlisted for a Whitbread Young Achiever award, has received an award from Childline for her work with Post Pals.