WHY THE SOAPS ARE SO IMPORTANT FOR RAISING AWARENESS

It will be no shock to many of you that read my blogs on a recently basis, how important programmes like Emmerdale, Coronation Street, Hollyoaks and EastEnders are at the moment in terms of raising awareness.

Last year, I shared an article about why the soaps are our favourites, now here is one about why the soaps are great at raising awareness. Soaps for many people like myself are an escape from our 'normal' lives, and it's through the soaps that I have learnt so much about issues that go on in other people's day-to-day lives.

Since January (I am not saying that they weren't before) but Emmerdale, Coronation Street, EastEnders and Hollyoaks have been raising so much awareness of many difficult subjects that see the shows work with many different organisations as well as the story teams who work so hard on the research aspect for every single part of the planned storylines as well as the actors/ actresses playing their parts brilliantly.

However, one thing that I am sure I am not alone in saying/ thinking is when shows go from one storyline into another rather quickly without letting the storyline have time to breathe one it's own, whilst you always have to remember all the times that storylines have been allowed time to breathe and be grateful for them for example Emmerdale's all male episode around getting men talking in March, Juliet Nightingale in Hollyoaks with Hodgkin's Lymphoma with the fantastic Niamh Blackshaw portraying the emotional side very well filled with such honesty, but I can't not mention EastEnders with their brain tumour storyline with Lola Pearce over the past few months as it has opened my eyes to the symptoms and the affects it can have on the family/ friends around the individuals.

However, during Friday 14th April's episode of Emmerdale, Amelia Spencer had a health scare that I could 100% relate with due to her health scare - I shared my opinion on the episode here for me who brilliantly portrayed and Daisy Campbell was fantastic!

Being someone with a chronic illness (you have to remember that not everyones is visible), I would love to see soaps tackling these issues as they could bring so much awareness to its viewers informing them of many things. I know I've said this before through this blog and my twitter that I would love to see stuttering covered as well as hard of hearing people.

Another thing that you have to bear in my mind is that some programmes release their episodes online before they air for many viewers, and thanks to this fantastic way it allows for many people to watch the episodes when it suits them and catch up on the ones that aren't via either ITVX for Emmerdale and Coronation Street, BBCi Player for EastEnders, and not forgetting 4OD (Channel 4's streaming service) for Hollyoaks.