The Sleep Charity, has scooped a top accolade – the Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service, the highest award a voluntary group can receive in the UK.
The award-winning charity, established in 2012, helps 30,000 families with sleep issues a year, as well as providing specialist support and accredited training for professionals and commercial organisations. In order to do this, the charity relies on the support of volunteers throughout the country to carry out various roles. Director of the Vigo Group, Tariq Shah has chaired the charity since 2019.
The Sleep Charity is one of 230 charities, social enterprises and voluntary groups to receive the prestigious award this year. The number of nominations has increased year on year since the awards were introduced in 2002, showing that the voluntary sector is thriving and full of innovative ideas to make life better for those around them.
Representatives of The Sleep Charity will receive the award from The Lord Lieutenant of South Yorkshire later this summer. Furthermore, two volunteers from The Sleep Charity will have the opportunity to attend a garden party at Buckingham Palace in May 2021, along with other recipients of the Queen’s Award.
Said Vicki Dawson, CEO of The Sleep Charity:
“This award is known as the ‘MBE for the voluntary sector’ so it is an absolute honour to receive it. It is also incredible recognition of the huge amount of work that goes into making the charity successful year on year. As a small team we rely on our network of skilled volunteers who work tirelessly to offer sleep support and this is a huge tribute to everyone’s hard work and commitment, without which we would struggle to deliver services.”
Tariq Shah, director of the Vigo Group and Chair of The Sleep Charity, commented:
“I’m delighted that the incredible work of The Sleep Charity has been recognised with this prestigious award.
Firstly, congratulations to the brilliant team for the many years of hard work and dedication it has taken to develop the charity into the force for good it is today, and thank you to the many volunteers and trustees past and present, without whom the charity would be simply unable to operate.
I look forward to working with everyone involved to build on this success, supporting more families and health professionals to improve people’s physical and emotional well-being and help the nation get a better night’s sleep.”
The Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service aims to recognise outstanding work by volunteer groups to benefit their local communities. It was created in 2002 to celebrate the Queen’s Golden Jubilee. Recipients are announced each year on 2nd June, the anniversary of the Queen’s Coronation.