Award given to Foyle Search '¨and Rescue

Awarded by the Volunteer Now, the NI Investing in Volunteers Award is the UK Quality Standard for all organisations which involve volunteers in their work.

To date, 92 organisations have achieved this award in Northern Ireland.

Welcoming the announcement, Stephen Twells, Chairman of Foyle Search and Rescue said staff and volunteers were “delighted” with the news.

“We are delighted and honoured to receive this award,” he said.

“Over the past 18 months, we have been working towards the UK Quality Standard for the involvement of volunteers within an organisation. The standard has brought a lot of changes internally to our charity and has helped us improve our Volunteer Management practices, ensuring that our volunteering policies and processes are as good as they possibly can be-for the benefit of our volunteers and the charity.

“This standard allows us to publicly demonstrate and promote our commitment to volunteering, valuing volunteers and supporting positive volunteering experiences”.

“We are a small volunteer-driven group. Our volunteers are from the local community, who selflessly give up over 11,000 hours each year to help our own community, around the clock. It is our sole aim to continue the vital life saving work we do and continue to prevent and intervene in suicide attempts that occur in and around the River Foyle area”.

“We would like to take this opportunity thank all our volunteers for embracing the changes within the charity because, without their dedication and commitment, we would not be the organisation we are today”.