London Hearts is a charity which operates across the whole of the UK, helping to place lifesaving defibrillators in communities for public use. Our mission is to ensure that wherever you are in the UK, you are never further than 100m away from a defibrillator at all times. Less than one in ten people survive an out of hospital cardiac arrest, but we believe that this statistic can be improved with better access to defibrillators, and by empowering people to learn CPR and defibrillator awareness skills, so that they feel confident enough to step in and save a life in the event that someone has a cardiac arrest.
The COVID-19 pandemic has greatly impacted our fundraising activities, but has also reinforced how necessary these devices are to communities. How quickly somebody receives treatment after a cardiac arrest has a huge impact on the likelihood of them surviving it. With ambulance times stretched across the country, it is essential that in an emergency, a bystander can intervene with CPR use a defibrillator to give someone the best of chance of survival. This means that a cardiac arrest victim can begin to receive care before the ambulance arrives and will hopefully result in the best possible outcome.
Here at Albany Road Baptist Church in Roath, Cardiff, we have been working through the Covid 19 pandemic with the amazing support of The Mosawi Foundation, providing us with the means and ability to best help those in social need throughout our community. As well as the usual outreach and providing physical help to those who are struggling by shopping and collecting prescriptions, working with local schools, homeless schemes and providing pastoral care.As time went on we recognised the need of those who were isolated and lonely from lack of contact or missing hearing a friendly voice and visits from family.
To meet this need it has been necessary to adapt our usual model of response in a different way. We have therefore partnered with Linking Lives who provide the framework and have developed Two's Company, a telephone befriending service, to offer Church's as a way of addressing the current vast need.
The heart of Glenwood church has always been to be a safe space forpeople to connect, to learn, and grow. Who we are and all we do comes out of our desire for God's love to be demonstrated and expressed through us. We want people to experience shalom and wholeness and our heart therefore is to be a community where every individual is valued and has something positive to contribute. We believe that every human being is of equal high worth and can thrive when rooted in strong relationships and flourishing communities. Therefore, as part of our expression of church we are creating a Wellbeing Space to serve our communities of Llanedeyrn and Pentwyn by reconfiguring our current premises and building a two storey 500 sq.m annex at the front of our existing building.
We at CiRDiC are very grateful to The Mosawi Foundation who have supported us. They have provided funds to help us make Christmas a good experience for the poor and needy in our community and to ensure all our guests received a Christmas dinner with all the trimmings and a pudding.
December is always a busy month for NOMAD as we prepare Christmas food parcels, and this year is no exception. In fact, the whole year has been exceptional as we, along with everyone else have tried to navigate our way through the restrictions imposed by the COVID pandemic. With much of our regular work curtailed and an increase in demand for food parcels for a few months the Food Bank became our key focus. Between March and October, we packed 2107 bags of food and delivered 955 food parcels a 385% increase over the same period last year. It was a privilege to be able to provide food for as many as 160 individuals and families and truly amazing to see the ground swell of support from within the community as donations of food and money poured in to support those in need.
'Thank you so much for your generous contribution. The sunflower growing competition has been enjoyed by many staff and their families, and there has been a real sense of engagement and competition! It has been a challenging few months for us all, and your kind gesture has meant there has been something positive to talk about. Once again, thank you.'
Katie Gore, Lead Physiotherapist, Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust
Oxford Hospitals Charity: about us
We are dedicated to providing the best medical equipment, research and facilities for our patients and staff, and go beyond what can be funded by the NHS. The impact of our work can be seen across the hospitals in the Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust including the John Radcliffe, Oxford Children's Hospital, Churchill Hospital, Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre, and Horton General in Banbury.
For more information about the Oxford Hospitals Charity please see their website:
www.hospitalcharity.co.uk
Oxford Hospitals Charity: registered charity number 1175809, a company limited by guarantee number 11052176