Colourful Beginnings

We are proud to partner with Colourful Beginnings, a charity that supports families with premature and sick babies in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU).

The charity was founded in 2016 by Ola Adegbenro, after experiencing two premature births and spending extended time in various NICUs and specialist hospitals. She realised that there was very little support for families with premature babies. The medical teams helped but could only go as far as their line of duty permitted.

Ola's two beautiful daughters were born at 23 weeks and 29 weeks premature. When Ola's first daughter was born at 23 weeks, she spent nine months in five different hospitals, bringing her daughter home on oxygen and a feeding tube, with lots of hospital appointments. This NICU experience inspired her to start a support group for families in similar situations.

Ola's story

"I found the NICU journey very hard and disheartening. I felt I had nowhere to turn to the first time around and the second time, I had to rely on my experience with my first child and the ideas and observations of friends who weren’t even preemie mums. Seeing how tedious and mentally, physically, and emotionally draining the experience of having a preemie baby was for me, my family and other families I encountered, it became imperative to have a support group for families of preemie and sick babies where ideas, experiences, challenges and solutions can be shared. My second daughter was born at 29 weeks exactly a month after starting the group, which eventually became Colourful Beginnings.

When I had my first daughter, I searched eagerly for some success stories but found none and this really made my first NICU experience very daunting, scary and isolating. Not finding stories of babies and families who had gone through what I was going through really inspired me to change the narrative for other families. I was motivated to create the space to share stories on our social media platforms.

Due to my personal experience of being completely unprepared for my babies’ arrival and the challenges I faced as a result, Colourful Beginnings also provides free Treasure Boxes to families in the NICU. The Treasure Boxes contain essential items and keepsakes for the families to treasure forever.“

Ola is a true inspiration. She has set up a charity and a community to support other parents going through their NICU journey. Through offering advice, support, and treasure boxes, the families that Colourful Beginnings support, will not feel isolated, and will have a better understanding of challenges they will face.

Colourful Beginnings is a UK registered charity, they can only do what they do because of those committed to helping by volunteering / donating their time and resources. 

Please contact them if you would like to share your story, donate or support in other ways.