Friends of the Royal Hospital Belfast
Promoting community awareness
Formed in 1988, the main goal of the Friends of the Royal is to improve the comfort of patients and enable the staff to be more effective in their work. To improve patients' hospital experience, the Friends have provided many things including medical equipment, televisions, water coolers and curtains. They have also furnished waiting rooms and provided stay-over rooms.
For staff, the Friends provide bursaries to those that wish to train further, learn new skills and learn more about their profession. This allows them to provide the utmost in care, attention and treatment to patients and the local community.
The Friends' biggest challenge has been gaining recognition of their organisation and their work. Because the community was not aware of their function or programs, the Friends decided to focus their efforts on the publicity of their organisation. Now, the Friends have an excellent publicity team that captures photographs of their donations of money, equipment, and bursaries, and other contributions that they make. The photographs are placed in the hospital newsletter and have been effective in gaining the support and recognition they need. The Friends suggest that other charity organisations do the same — to get out there and make the community aware of your efforts. Ideally, they suggest having someone in your group act as a press officer to achieve as much publicity as possible.
The Friends are most proud of the fact that they had the strength and determination to remain where they are and to do the job they were originally formed to do. In the future, they intend to remain strong, to keep raising funds and to continue to support their community. The Friends find it very rewarding to see the smiles and to hear the words of gratitude from the people that they are able to help.
Quotes
“It is so rewarding to see the smiles and to hear the words of gratitude from the people that we are able to help.” — William Wilson, Chairman, Friends of the Royal Fund-raising Committee.