A CRUMLIN mum who runs a charity which raises money to provide vital anti-suffocation pillows for epilepsy sufferers is looking to scoop £25,000 in a national competition.

Mum-of-three Sallieann Gould is a full-time carer for her son Ben, 23, and has run Epilepsy Sucks UK from her home on Hillside for three years.

Ben suffers from Lennox–Gastaut syndrome, a severe form of epilepsy. As part of his condition, he regularly suffers from hundreds of seizures a night.

The charity has sent out about 1,800 anti-suffocation pillows since it started and requires about £2,500 to keep up with demand from people around the UK every month.

It is principally run by Ms Gould with the help of 10 volunteers. Of those, one is based in Ireland, two are in Scotland, two in Wales and the remaining five are in England.

But she said their breadth across the UK and Ireland means that sometimes funding is more difficult to obtain.

Ms Gould said: “I put in grants but we don’t get very far because we are not specific [to Wales]. If we were just in Wales, we could get Welsh grants."

And she added: “There are going to be major UK charities up against us so we need backing from Welsh votes.”

The charity’s Whole Years Pillow Project will go up against a host of other charities in an online vote on Aviva’s Community Fund website throughout this month. The three charities with the most votes will then be passed to a organisers’ panel who will decide a winner.

As part of the campaign, Ms Gould has collated a gallery of over 100 people who have received pillows. Each picture shows how each are affected by epilepsy. They range from young children to adults.

Epilepsy Sucks UK has already won a clutch of awards from another charity, Young Epilepsy, for their work. In March 2013 Ms Gould took home a prize as their Young Epilepsy Champion over the age of 26 for her “tireless support she gives to parents of children with epilepsy” and received the award from Himesh Patel, who plays Tamwar Masood in Eastenders.

And at Young Epilepsy’s awards this year, she attended as a guest of honour along with ex-Eastenders actress Cheryl Fergison, who played Heather Trott.

For more information on Epilepsy Sucks UK, visit their Twitter page, @EpilepsySucksUK or their website, esuk.uk.com.

And to vote for them to get a share of the money, visit http://bit.ly/1zHoOSM