Raiché’s Story

After I was rescued from a house fire, I was rushed to the St. Andrews Specialist Burns Unit in Essex for round the clock care. I was there for months on end, linked to life support, wires & tubes and surrounded by the best healthcare professionals and closest family.

Recovery is a hard process with the aftercare commitments, as it takes time and patience. The hospital begins to feel like your second home.

I now have visible scars on my face and body, a few finger tips and toes amputated, with loss of balance, hair, sensation and grip. This created some limitations and I had to adapt to different ways of doing things.

As a child with burns you know you look different, but you don’t quite understand the impact you have on others.

It was when I grew older is when the questions started. Everyone was wearing makeup and mini skirts around me and I was still covering my head with a hat because I had lost my hair in the fire and my legs with long skirts. Why do you keeping covering your body? Why is your head in a scarf? And I’d say, “It’s cause I want to.” But I didn’t understand why my answers weren’t enough for them. For me, this is the way I lived. This was my normal.

But I found friendship in the burns club I went to. My time there and my upbringing outside of school was really supportive and encouraging, which was vital to my recovery. It also made me realise that I can be just like everyone else with a twist and make a better life for myself.

It’s harder being a female. It’s the roles, the perception that society compartmentalises us into. Boys need to be tough and girls should be caring and girly.

And that’s the same with being Black. If you are Black you are meant to be a certain way, behave a certain way, speak a certain way.

Also, because you don’t see many Black burn survivors, it sometimes feels like I’m a “token.” Even for the opportunities that come my way – one does think, is it because you need more representation or is it actually because you are genuinely interested in listening to what I have to say?

But when it comes to race, it is not just people who are of a different colour than myself but some of my biggest challenges come from within my own culture.

The way you look matters a lot in Black culture, so that was a long journey of acceptance for me.

I still am affected by my burns. I’ll continue to need surgery as my burns don’t grow with me – they just get tighter and restrict my movement. Despite the odds being stacked against me, I am now a grants officer in London. I am a homeowner, a wife, a mother, adventurer and advocate for burns awareness.

As Ambassadors, we know best what it’s like to lose our identity. The Scar Free Foundation is helping us better understand how our skin heals, improving scar treatments and hopefully giving future trauma patience back something even more valuable – time.