Carers deserve our thanks, and the chance to have a break from their responsibilities, says Jude Habib

• Jude Habib
• Guardian Professional, Wednesday 20 June 2012 11.51 BST

A few weeks ago my aunt died. She had been ill with dementia for many years but her death was sudden and unexpected. I loved my aunt dearly but the person I worried most about when she died was her sister, who had tirelessly looked after her for such a long time and was her full-time carer.

When Sara died, my aunt F effectively was made redundant. And it wasn’t for the first time. More than 30 years ago, my grandmother died from Parkinson’s disease, having spent the last years of her life pretty much bedridden. My aunts cared for her selflessly and, in my opinion, at the expense of their own personal lives.

Those memories of visiting my grandmother and how loving and caring my aunts were towards her have always stayed with me.

Several years ago I was a BBC producer of a pioneering social action initiative – Ring Around Carers – a campaign to raise awareness of the issues facing carers in Britain and to offer support in the form of telephone friendship groups. Carers weren’t high up on the political agenda, social care wasn’t the ticking timebomb it is today and a comment by a BBC manager, who told me that carers weren’t “his audience”, remains with me. The project was ahead of its time.

As part of the project, I travelled around the country capturing the stories of carers. I met hundreds of individuals who would repeatedly tell me they felt socially isolated as in many instances friends and family had disappeared. Although many were exhausted, the portraits I captured were of incredible resilience. The campaign and the support element provided a lifeline to so many people. And by broadcasting these stories across the BBC, I hope I helped to bring to the surface the reality of everyday life for so many people.

The experience of my aunts combined with the privilege of being involved in Ring Around Carers are the reasons why championing the rights of carers is very important to me.

I have never been brave enough to be a carers’ champion full-time, so I try to offer support as best as I can through my work. Over the years my company, sounddelivery, has given a percentage of its profits to organisations that do amazing work, like the Kiloran Trust, Carers Together and Chill4UsCarers. These are frontline organisations supporting carers day in, day out.

Last year my colleagues supported my initiative – Give Us a Break – to bring 22 carers from Hampshire to London for a three-day holiday as part of an exciting pilot offering short breaks to unpaid carers.

I’m still in touch with some of the carers who came to that trip. One year on, one of the carers has managed to make time to go back to college to get IT skills and improve her English. Another has been back to London with new found confidence that she can do this trip on her own and overall the trip has left the carers with lasting positive memories. The irony of this all is that my father has recently been diagnosed with vascular dementia and my mum has become his carer. We’re at the start of the caring journey but my experience has prepared me as much as possible for what lies ahead.

Caring will affect us all – whether directly or indirectly. All of us will know of someone who is looking after a sick or disabled friend or relative. Or you might be reading this and are a carer yourself.

I just wanted to write this to say to all carers, thank you. We also care. Not just during Carers Week – but for the other the other 51 weeks of the year.

Jude Habib is the founder of digital media and training company sounddelivery but writes in a personal capacity. The team at sounddelivery are trying to capture stories of the last time carers had a break, and have invited carers to take pictures of themselves with a sheet of paper stating the last time they had a break

http://www.guardian.co.uk/social-care-network