Kelly Haas, Frankie James, Danny Haas, Jenny McGrath and Ciara Higgins-Mroz
Nina for Life charity tattoo day inks up almost €10,000 for suicide awareness
A Kingswood charity group have raised almost €10,000 for suicide awareness after holding a tattoo day and raffle.
NINA For Life Suicide Awareness held their yearly tattoo day to raise money and awareness for their work in providing awareness and educating people about suicide, on Saturday, October 18.
Founder Jean Haas expressed her immense gratitude to all who attended the day at Kingswood Community Centre, as well as all the volunteer staff and tattoo artists.
“It was an amazing event for us, because we’re only a small organisation, so every penny counts that we raise.
“We do workshops, and amongst all our stuff that we do, we don’t charge people, so yeah, everybody that got inked, people that bought spot prizes, Kingswood Community Centre who give us the premises every year, you know, we’re so grateful.”
Jean founded NINA for Life after her son Christopher took his own life 12 years ago.
“We set up NINA because I felt I wanted to give something back instead of falling apart, which I did for two years,” she said.
“It keeps his memory alive as well, in a nice way, and hopefully, we’re giving hope to people that are struggling.
“When you lose somebody, grief is hard, but when its suicide, grief is a little bit harder, because you have all the anger and what ifs, and a lot of blame on yourself, especially when it’s a child. But Nina is being a big part of our community now, and hopefully we are helping people,” Jean said.
Up to 150 people were tattooed by artists Jody and Tony and Derek from Skin Vibes Tattoo in Inchicore.
At €50 per tattoo, this raised €7,500, plus an additional €1,750 raised from the raffle.
Jean thanked all the artists and “beautiful volunteers” who helped out on the day, saying NINA for Life couldn’t keep going without the community in Kingswood and wider south Dublin.
“We do our Family Fun Day every year and it’s amazing, the whole community gets involved.
“Every tattoo has a symbol and a reason behind it and there were tattoos personal to people,” she added.
“If you can give hope to people, I think that makes a little difference in the absolutely cruel world we’re living in at the moment.”
