Future Living Hertford, a charity for Domestic Abuse victims and survivors, has been honoured with the Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service 2021, the highest award a voluntary group can receive in the UK. Known as the MBE for voluntary service.
Future Living Hertford is a registered charity (1155145) helping men, women and children who are survivors of domestic abuse and those in recovery from addictions. We are one of a number of charities, social enterprises and voluntary groups in the country to receive the prestigious award this year. The number of nominations has increased year on year, showing that the voluntary sector is thriving and full of innovative ideas to make life better for those around them, particularly in light of the challenges presented by Coronavirus.
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. Award winners this year are wonderfully diverse. They include volunteer groups from across the UK.
Furthermore, two volunteers from Future Living Hertford will attend a garden party at Buckingham Palace in 2022, along with other recipients of this year’s Award.
Future Living Hertford, Sandra Conte, CEO says:
“I am so pleased that the work of Future Living Hertford has been recognised by the Queens Award for Voluntary Service. I would like to pay tribute to the thousands of hours of hard work and commitment of our volunteers since 2014. To run and sustain a therapeutic service such as our own is a huge challenge. Add into that the pressure of Coronavirus and it becomes a huge task. We have been fortunate to have formed a wonderful group of men and women who have come together over the years to offer group support, personal counselling and a range of ad-hoc projects to help people to move forward into a self-directed life. Our clients come mainly from Hertfordshire although we believe that if people can get to us then we should work with them.
Thank you to those who nominated us for this award. Thanks also to the individuals and charitable funding organisations who have believed in our service and have solidly championed our work over the past 7 years. We are independent from statutory organisations and are overwhelmed by the support we receive from the community, voluntary and social enterprise sectors. It certainly is a great honour to receive this award.”
My additional thanks to all those who were nominated to receive Hero of Hertfordshire Awards during the pandemic. We have an amazing team of volunteers and staff at Future Living who work together to provide a professional, supportive and caring service to those in need.
