The merger between City and St George’s is already making a positive and exciting impact. One additional benefit borne out by this, is the extra reach that it gives to our two successful Annual Funds, ensuring that the future of London’s health professionals is an even brighter one.
Almost all universities have annual funds, with gifts from alumni and friends, helping to support student-facing initiatives. Indeed, the generosity of City St George’s supporters and their generous donations to our Student Support programmes, are already making sure that the Nursing, Speech and Language Therapy, Midwifery, Psychology and Optometry students of the Clerkenwell campus, and the Medicine, Pharmacology and Biomedical science students on the Tooting campus, go on to graduate without experiencing severe financial hardship. The following two students illustrate the importance of this support.
Eric, a mature student in the final year of his Adult Nursing degree on the Clerkenwell campus – read Eric’s full story – was inspired to take up Nursing during the Covid-19 pandemic. Yet after finding the academic workload taxing, Eric worried that he was in danger of failing.
“Outside of my placements, I needed to keep things ticking over with part-time work but found myself struggling to keep up with my studies. Therefore, the student Hardship Fund was a lifesaver. It gave me room to concentrate and make sure everything was sticking up top, and that I wouldn’t be letting anyone down on the ward.”
Eric also told us about how he and his peers had benefitted from the merger:
“For me and some of my fellow Nursing students, it feels like a consolidation of the whole health profession. You learn quite early on, that in medical scenarios, nurses are just as vital as the most skilled surgeon. And to have the whole range of professions studying in one institution, means that all the courses can learn things from each other, and realise that we are all aiming towards the same things, to make a positive impact each time we come on shift.”
Likewise, Lucy, a second year Medicine student on the Tooting campus found herself overwhelmed by the long, challenging road to becoming a doctor.
“I was incredibly stressed at the start of the year – trying to make ends meet in London is an expensive task, and my student loan and bursary didn’t cover much more than my rent. I had to pick up extra shifts, which was really starting to impact my time spent studying and I really began to struggle.
“Yet, receiving support from the Hardship Fund felt like a huge burden was lifted from me. It removed a huge and tangible financial pressure and allowed me to focus more on my studies. Since receiving the grant, I have started to feel more confident in my abilities as a medical student, something I was struggling with before due to the considerable time I spent focusing on earning money.”
Alumni support to our Annual Funds meant that both Lucy and Eric were able to graduate without facing debilitating financial hardship.
And what amazing support that was. As independent institutions, each campus individually raised over 100,000 in gifts and pledges in the last telephone fundraising campaigns that they undertook. The impact of these donations was truly life-changing, benefiting students from under-represented backgrounds through widening participation work, helping fund groundbreaking and life-enhancing research projects such as the Aphasia Clinic, an initiative that aids survivors of strokes regaining the ability to communicate, and, of course, ensuring that students suffering financial hardship do not have to drop out of their courses.
Both campuses will be running further telephone fundraising campaigns this year and we are confident that our alumni and supporters will answer the call.