anna fielder, karen beckett and stella oakes
Three of the women who came on The Farm workshop with
us one year were student midwives who knew from the outset they were going to
need to work at raising the money to go. We were so impressed by the scope and
success of their fund raising that we asked them to write about it for the site,
in the hope that it might prove useful for other students or midwives needing
to raise funds for this or similar trips.
We were second year student midwives on NHS bursaries when we started fund-raising to visit The Farm. As you can imagine, we were not exactly rich and we didn't have much time, but between us we managed to raise approximately £1575 towards the costs of the trip. If you're looking for some financial help to go on the midwifery trip of a life-time, here are some tips based on our own experiences. We hope they're helpful.
· If you're a student midwife ask at university to see if there are any pots of money at departmental, faculty or university-wide level that are specifically for supporting students in additional educational activities.
· Contact the RCM to ask for information about awards and trust funds with which they are linked, and to which you could apply. We applied for a Bounty Midwives Professional Development Award in conjunction with the RCM, and were successful, receiving £600 between the three of us.
· There may also be trust funds to which you can apply that are locally based in your area. Ask around.
· You might want to ask for support from your local RCM or ARM branch. We received £100 from the Bury branch of the RCM (where Stella and Karen work) and are doing a presentation for them about The Farm on our return.
· The landlord and landlady at the pub where Stella works helped us to organise a raffle (and kindly donated the prize for us – a DVD player). We raised nearly £600 this way.
· We also raised funds doing 'football cards' to support our trip to The Farm. These are available from some newsagents and they cost about 25p. They're like scratch-cards that you can do with friends. Each person pays a particular amount to have a go (it's up to you how much – maybe 50p or £1). They then choose a square (each of which depict a football team) and write their name in it. When all the squares have been filled, you scratch off the silver panel on the card to reveal which football team has won, and therefore to reveal the winner. The winner takes half of the money that has been raised from the football card, and the other half goes towards a named 'good-cause' – in this case your trip!
· We wrote to businesses and organisations with a maternity focus, explaining about the trip, how it would benefit us, women and their families, and asking for sponsorship. We must admit that this wasn't very successful for us – but it's always worth a try.
· How about organising a fund-raising event, or do a sponsored run/swim etc?
· Is there a chance that your midwifery manager will support your professional development by paying or contributing towards the fees? We're students so we didn't try this one, but if you're a qualified midwife (not self-employed of course) it might be worth a try.
· Finally, be cheeky and ask for donations! Friends, family and colleagues were really generous when we explained where we wanted to go, and why. For example, we received donations from a couple of the GPs who Karen works with on community placements.
We hope that gives you some useful hints to be starting off with!
Good luck – and have a great time. We did!