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Jimmy and Véronique Voisine, Association Audrey, France
On account of our ignorance about meningitis, we have lost our daughter Audrey. She was 12 years old and in 24 hours she died from meningococcal C meningitis. My wife and I founded the Association Audrey on 21st January 2000 in order to provide information and help as many people as possible. Now we take part in several events and we are members and co-creators of the Confederation of Meningitis Organisations (C.O.M.O.).
Our objectives in forming our organization after Audrey's tragic death were to make up for the lack of information about meningitis for the public at large, since the disease reached its terminal phase in our personal experience because of our ignorance as regards this condition. We also wanted to help the government administration and its agents have a more human face, when dealing with children's deaths. The formation and running of Association Audrey has been a way to mourn over the loss of our daughter ever since she has left us. However we also wanted to inform others; to provide a series of preventive public actions so as to fight this disease, and let others know that it is possible to overcome this ordeal, despite a tragedy.
Our organization has been growing for the last ten years: we first created « Association Audrey », and now we are setting up « Méningites France – Association Audrey ». This new organisation will perpetuate the work we've done so far, and our aim is to employ our very first member of staff. We also want to help people dealing with after-effects (disability), provide sufficient and specific information as regards amputation (prostheses for children), and while continuing to offer general information as regards all other aspects of the disease.
Jimmy and Véronique Voisine
