I Am Living is a national public awareness campaign that was launched as part of the 2022 Palliative Care Week, which encourages Australians to have open and honest conversations and engage in timely planning about end-of-life care, dying, death, loss and grief.
The I Am Living awareness campaign and website are brought to the Australian community by Calvary Health Care, Catholic Cemeteries + Crematoria and Mercy Health, with the valued and ongoing support of other organisations and individuals.
I Am Living centres on highly intimate, authentic and educative encounters with eleven people diagnosed with advanced life-limiting illness captured via video. The conversations as well as resources and contacts, can be found on the campaign’s website.
The campaign aims to expand the understanding of dying through the provision of credible information about quality end-of-life care and sharing the lived experience of people who have found life, hope and healing as they approach the end-of-life. The reality of many people’s experience is positive, even beautiful and hope filled. The videos show that these kinds of experiences are possible, even in a hospital bed.
I Am Living’s call to action is prompted by the key question, “What are you waiting for?” This encourages people to have the important conversations and engage in timely planning so that they can live life to the full. Once the planning is done and communicated, people can live well in the knowledge that their end-of-life wishes are known and will be respected by the significant people in their lives and clinicians.
During June 2022, the initiative’s messages will be communicated to the public throughout Australia via billboards, posters and social media advertising. This advertising campaign is based on research which tells us that the average Australian spends over 700 hours a year waiting, inclusive of the doctor’s waiting room.