A couple who lost their daughter in the Manchester Arena terror blast are launching a charity to help future victims of tragedy, saying support needs to be in place before an atrocity happens again.
Andrew and Lisa Roussos lost their eight-year-old daughter, Saffie, in the attack two years ago today. She was the youngest of the 22 victims.
The couple reveal they couldn’t have coped in the aftermath of the tragedy without the overwhelming public support of the Manchester Fund, and have now set up a charity, MCR 22, aimed at supporting future victims of terror attacks.
Andrew told HuffPost UK how no-one knows when a terrorist attack could strike and revealed he and his family even took steps to evade terror hotspots by cancelling family holidays.
He says the aim of MCR 22 is to raise funds to provide all aspects of help to victims and families in the event of any future terrorist attacks.
“I pray to god that nothing like that ever happens again, but the reality is that terrorism is a modern day threat and if it hits and you are affected, you need the right support and backing to try to come to terms with it.”
Before the arena attack happened, the Roussos family took pains to protect themselves from being exposed to terrorism – and even cancelled a family holiday to Disneyland Paris in 2015 after a wave of terror attacks took place in France.
The family re-booked at a later date but steered clear from the centre of Paris to try to ensure their safety.
Andrew said: “We avoided hotspots, particularly when there were troubles, and any situations where a terrorist attack could potentially happen.
“We never imagined it would happen at a concert. Unfortunately, the truth is, terrorism can happen anywhere. This charity will be UK-wide and for anyone who might end up needing it.”
He added: “You never think it will affect you, but our living nightmare happened to us. If it does happen, your life is never the same again and you need the support to get through it.”
Saffie went to her first ever concert with her mum, Lisa, and sister, Ashlee Bromwich, to see her idol Ariana Grande perform.
At the end of the concert, a suicide bomber detonated a device that killed Saffie and injured her mum and sister.
Lisa suffered horrendous life-changing injuries that included 117 shrapnel wounds.
She came close to death herself and spent six weeks in a coma. She only learned of her daughter’s death once she regained consciousness
Lisa feared she would never walk again and has spent almost two years undergoing rehabilitation and physiotherapy. She managed to complete the Manchester 10k at the weekend to raise funds for the new charity they are creating.
Lisa told HuffPost UK: “It was very emotional and I felt Saffie was with me all the way helping me through it.
“Saffie is always with me. She was such a determined little girl with her own achievements and she definitely got me through the walk.
“Halfway round, I got some pain in my knee, but after a while, it eased up and I kept going. The reaction and support I got from everyone was so overwhelming and everyone was so kind.
“I remember wondering if I would ever walk again. If someone had told me a year ago I would walk 10k, I would have said ‘no way’.”
Lisa says her aspirations for the MCR 22 charity are to help other victims and to take Saffie’s legacy into the future.
She explained: “For me, it gives me something to take Saffie into the future – I cannot leave her behind.
“If we can be there to offer even just a little bit of support to other people, it will be good. It really does help when you find someone who knows exactly how you feel.
“When someone has been through something similar, you feel a connection with them and trust and believe them.
“I think it is very important to have that common ground and that’s what we want to offer with this charity – we want to reach out and support families.
“Something positive has to come out of something so tragic.”
The couple owned a fish and chip shop in Leyland, Lancashire, but decided to sell up and move to the south of England after the tragedy as they knew it would be too painful to return there without Saffie.
Andrew says without the support of the public shown through the We Love Manchester emergency fund, he and his family and other victims could not have survived. He believes they faced being on the streets as they would have struggled financially.
He told HuffPost UK: “After what happened, we were at Wythenshawe Hospital in Manchester for three-and-a-half months.
“It is bad enough leaving hospital and facing the prospect of starting life again without your daughter. But when we asked the question: ‘What help and support is there?’ the answer was: ‘not much’.
“The only government support was criminal justice compensation of £5,500 per parent – so £11,000 for losing our daughter. That is the maximum compensation. It is an insult.
“If it hadn’t been for the overwhelming generosity of the public with the Manchester fund, we would have been on the streets once the £11,000 ran out. We could not return to normality and we had lost our daughter and our business.
“It is not that you want money after an atrocity like that, but you need the head space to think about how you can function.”
Andrew says the goal of MCR 22 is to help people affected by terrorism in different ways, whether that is re-building their lives, additional medical care or coping with mental health.
He says although he and his family did not take up mental health support and counselling, it was offered to them during Lisa’s long stay in hospital.
However, he says he has spoken to many other people affected by the terror attack who struggled to get mental health support or faced long delays.
He has also praised the headteacher of Saffie’s school, Chris Upton at Tarleton Community Primary School, for the way he plugged the gap to support her devastated classmates.
Andrew said: “The headteacher at Saffie’s school had children aged seven and eight knocking on his door and crying because they were so traumatised by what happened.
“It was the only school in the UK where it affected that age group and he had no support. He went on courses to learn how to look after bereaved children of such a young age.
“He now goes into other schools to give talks to teachers just in case it happens to them in the future. He is a diamond of a man and they are lucky to have him.”
The Roussos family are now in the process of getting MCR 22 registered as a charity. They already have a board of trustees – including Lisa’s surgeon.
Andrew said: “If this charity gets supported in the way I hope it does, we will be there to help victims of terrorism in different aspects of what they need and do our best for them.
“We know first-hand what it is like to be affected by a terror attack and we want to support other people if they are unlucky enough to have something like this happen to them.”