Remembering Yusef

Returning to full-time education as a mature student can be a daunting prospect but for Alison Abubaker her studies have proved to be something of a refuge in the wake of a devastating family tragedy.

Just a week and a day after Alison (44) matriculated last year her 12 year old son Yusef died suddenly while playing football. Despite a post mortem and DNA testing no cause has yet been found for Yusef's heart suddenly stopping. He had been a fit and active boy and a keen rugby and football player and swimmer.

In the desperate days, weeks and months that followed Yusef's death Alison came close to abandoning her dream of a university education.

'After Yusef died I thought, 'Who cares about this degree course, who cares about anything. After losing Yusef, everything except his brothers and his father seemed so unimportant,' she said. 'This is a time where you manage to get everything into perspective in your life'.

'But I returned to University and in a lot of ways it has given me a focus. I can come here and if I spend an hour in a lecture or a class where I have to concentrate then that helps me get through part of a day.'

Alison has also channelled her energy and her grief into a fundraising campaign in memory of her son. The Yusef Abubaker Memorial Trust gained charitable status in March and has already raised thousands of pounds for worthwhile causes through a range of events and activities including a rugby tournament, buffets, fairs, Dundee Cyclathon and a Girls Pamper Night.

Recipients so far include the British Heart Foundation, Cancer Research UK, Diabetes Research and Sightsavers International as well as two local schools where money was used to establish Yusef Abubaker Reference Sections within the school libraries.

Alison is particularly proud of the Trust's collaboration with Sightsavers International which recently held a Yusef Abubaker Memorial Day, enabling 14 people in Sierra Leone to have day surgery to remove cataracts and restore their vision.

'It is very emotional for me because it involves restoring sight and those being helped are people who will be able to see their children and their grandchildren again," she explained. "They are benefiting from Yusef's death but in a very positive way.'

Alison added that the charity was set up in response to the overwhelming support and offers of help the family received after Yusef's death and through a determination to pay tribute to her son's kind and charitable nature.

'We wanted to do charitable acts in Yusef's name because he loved charity,' she said. 'He loved giving and helping people. He wanted to be a doctor, a surgeon or a medical researcher because he wanted to help people. That was his ambition. We wanted to continue his good deeds.'

'People wanted to help and we, even in our grief, could detect their feelings of helplessness at being unable to take our pain away. They wanted to do something positive so we decided to set up a charity, where we were able to say 'if you want to do something else to help us, support Yusef's charity'.

'It has grown beyond our expectations. We wanted to help people, to feed the poor even if it was just on a small scale, or buy medicines for people who couldn't afford them. But we have been able to do a lot more.'

As well as working with SightSavers International and other charities and providing reference books for schools, the charity's action plan for its first year includes funding childhood rubella vaccinations, providing a soup kitchen, feeding the hungry and providing sports equipment and funding.

'We have had overwhelming support from so many people,' added Alison. 'Yusef had just started first year at Harris Academy and the sixth years overwhelmed me when they decided to donate half their fund-raising efforts this year to Yusef's charity. Blackness Primary, where Yusef was also a pupil, have fundraised all year. We are most grateful to both schools for their continued support to us as a family.'

The day to day running of the charity including administration, communication and maintenance of the website (www.yusefabubaker.org.uk).