Small awards will help save lives in Wales

Area:

Wales

Programme:

Awards for All Wales

Release date:

24 1 2013

AUDIO AVAILABLE: Mark Rutherford of South Powys Community First Responders
explains why the funding is important. Click here to listen to Mark. To arrange an
interview with Mark, please call Oswyn Hughes on 02920 678 207 or
Email oswyn.hughes@biglotteryfund.org.uk 

More lives will be saved in Welsh communities with the news that vital Community First Responder units are among the range of groups throughout Wales to share in nearly £330,000 awarded from the Big Lottery Fund’s (BIG) Awards for All programme today.  

A total of 88 community-based projects across Wales share in the £329,787 awarded under the latest round of the Awards for All small grants programme (full list of awards at the end of the release. Please contact Oswyn Hughes to obtain full project descriptions).

Thanks to their award of £5,000 the South Powys Community First Responders will increase the size of the area they cover. Whether it’s people who are suffering a cardiac arrest, having breathing difficulties or who have suffered injuries at home, Community First Responder volunteers are trained to attend emergency calls received by the ambulance service and provide care until the ambulance arrives. Formed just over eighteen months ago, the South Powys Community First Responders have gone from strength to strength. The group currently cover the Brecon and Sennybridge areas and will now expand to cover Crickhowell and Hay-on-Wye by training twelve additional emergency responders later this year.
 
The grant from BIG will fund new defibrillators, medical response bags and protective clothing and the additional equipment will also enable them to set up a HeartStart scheme and deliver valuable training in life support to the general public.

The Operations Warrant Officer at Sennybridge Army camp near Brecon, Mark Rutherford, set up the First Responder team covering the Brecon area. He knows only too well how important First Responder Units are. One afternoon Mark and some colleagues were playing football at the Army camp when one of the players collapsed and went into cardiac arrest (see case study)

Mark was able to provide defibrillation and CPR prior to the arrival of an ambulance. The patient, Camp Commandant, Major Eddie Mahony, was flown to hospital by the Wales Air Ambulance and went on to make a full recovery.

Highlighting the importance of the Awards for All funding, Mark said: “It would have taken years as opposed to months to raise this cash, so we’re very grateful to the Big Lottery Fund for their award. We’ll now be able to deploy more people out on emergency response calls. We finished training five new volunteers last weekend and there are now ten of us working in the area. We have another five or more who want to be trained up.”

“Services like this are vital in a rural location like Powys and we can hopefully be there in the five minute window. More lives will be saved, especially if they’re suffering from cardiac arrest. 70% don’t survive just because of that time lapse. If you can get to someone within five minutes you stand an 80% chance of getting them back. If you had a volunteer First Responder on every street that would be great and more lives would be saved.”

In Ystalyfera, Neath Port Talbot, Pontardawe Community First Responder Group have also been awarded £3,717 for new defibrillators and response bags. The group will recruit additional volunteers which will decrease response times in the area and work towards providing 24 hour cover throughout the year.

The Welsh Ambulance Service is currently recruiting Community First Responders. If you feel you can make a difference for your community please log on to www.ambulance.wales.nhs.uk to download a form.

In other grants awarded, Ysgol Owen Jones C.P. in Northop, Flintshire, will bring a disused piece of land back into use by creating a forest school and nature area which will include a woodland garden, vegetable planters, nesting boxes, a willow arch tunnel and signs to indicate plants, trees and wildlife. And one of seven projects to share in nearly £25,000 awarded in Gwynedd, Gisda Cyfyngedig will open a new information centre in Caernarfon from which they will deliver support services to vulnerable young people aged 16-25.

There is also support for the vulnerable and those with learning difficulties and disabilities in West Wales and the Vale of Glamorgan. In Carmarthenshire, CYCA Wales Ltd in Llanelli will establish a service to support vulnerable, socially isolated and excluded young people aged 14 to 16 who are experiencing emotional and behavioural difficulties thanks to the £4,982 they were awarded. And in the Vale of Glamorgan, the Valeplus (Cymru) & Valeplus Extra organisation will spend the £4,927 they were awarded on opening a cafe in Barry High Street which will be used to provide training opportunities for people with a learning disability.

Gareth Williams, Awards for All Programme Manager for BIG in Wales, said: “Awards for All is having a positive impact throughout Wales. Money is helping to establish groups, societies and clubs, promoting learning, increasing volunteering opportunities and helping to build stronger communities.”      

Available in English and Welsh, application forms are available to download from www.awardsforall.org.uk or by phone on 0845 4 10 20 30.

Full list of awards

Further Information:
Oswyn Hughes - Big Lottery Fund Press Office: 02920 678 207
Out of Hours Contact: 07760 171 431
Public Enquiries Line: 08454 102030                           Textphone:  0845 6021 659
Full details of the Big Lottery Fund programmes and grant awards are available at: www.biglotteryfund.org.uk
Ask BIG a question here: https://ask.biglotteryfund.org.uk
Follow BIG on Twitter: www.twitter.com/biglotterywales
Find BIG on facebook: www.facebook.com/biglotteryfundwales 

Notes to Editors
• In Wales, the Big Lottery Fund is rolling out close to £100,000 a day in National Lottery good cause money, which together with other Lottery distributors means that across Wales most people are within a few miles of a Lottery-funded project.
• The Big Lottery Fund, the largest of the National Lottery good cause distributors, has been rolling out grants to health, education, environment and charitable causes across the UK since its inception in June 2004. It was established by Parliament on 1 December 2006.
• Since the National Lottery began in 1994, 28p from every pound spent by the public has gone to Good Causes. As a result, over £29 billion has now been raised and more than 383,000 grants given out across the arts, sport, heritage, charities, health, education and the environment.

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