A Little Hulton mum-of-three and an orphaned Bangladeshi counsellor have launched a new self-help group to help people struggling with loss and bereavement in Salford.
Denise Green, 60, from Little Hulton lost a child in the early 1990s when her fourth child was just 18 months old.
The loss was made worse when Denise, and her husband Bill, found out their child’s body parts were being used without their consent in the Alder Hey organ retention scandal.
Denise explained how the Wednesday weekly group at Gateway Community Church on Bright Road in Eccles would offer ‘companionship and empathy’ to cope with the difficulties that life brings when dealing with loss.
Her group co-ordinator Teresa Mondol, 62, who lives in Eccles, told an incredible life story of how she cannot remember the first 13 years of her life in Bangladesh, though she has flashbacks of neglect and being ‘found’ as a teenager by her foster carers.
Aged around seven, she was found hurt and unconscious in a field. When she would talk to her family more than 50 years later, they would maintain that she was lost in a crowd at a market, but her full story has never really been uncovered.
After two years in Mother Teresa’s orphanage in Kolkata, India, she moved to Manchester for an arranged marriage.
She and her husband ran a corner shop business in Salford in the 1980s and later helped their two sons through university. After her husband’s death from a stroke, Teresa went back to college to train as a counsellor.
Both Denise and Teresa have put their past hurts behind them and are now concentrating on helping others who have lost loved ones by setting up the
bereavement self-help group.
Denise told SalfordOnline.com how during Christmas time people can feel more alone and vunerable than the rest of the year and that the group could be a lifeline for those out there who need to talk to someone.
Starting on Wednesday 18 November, they will encourage others to share their own experiences in confidence and help each other through the processes of grief, no matter how difficult.
Denise’s and Teresa’s own stories are not easy ones but they insist they have come through much stronger and want to help others to do the same.
“The first step is the most difficult, you don’t even have to talk at your first meeting if you don’t want to, you can just sit and listen to others,” said Denise.
The group, for males and females from any background, will be held every Wednesday at Gateway Community Church, Bright Road, Eccles Salford M30 0WG from 10.30am to 12.30pm.
Denise, herself from a family of 11 children, has lived in Salford for most of her life and has been pastoring with her husband Bill Green (from a family of 16 children) at Gateway Community Church for 11 years.
Main image: Denise Green and Teresa Mondol
