Descendants receive the Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service!

June 4, 2019

It’s with great pleasure that we can finally announce that we have been honoured with the Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service.

This is the highest award a voluntary group can receive in the UK!

Descendants is a charity founded in 1993 which supports local children and their parents with after school creative activities, events and trips.

Additionally, Descendants annually run the Dr John Roberts CBE Q.C Achievement Awards (now in it’s 15th year) to celebrate the achievements of children of African and Caribbean descent within the borough of Ealing. The nominations are made by the headteachers of the local schools.

Descendants founder Margaret Noel and Celestina Uzoka from the Descendants Committee attended a garden party at Buckingham Palace in May along with the other recipients of this year’s Award.

Descendants is one of 281 charities, social enterprises and voluntary groups to receive the prestigious award this year. The number of nominations and awards 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.

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. Winners are announced each year on 2 June – the anniversary of the Queen’s Coronation. Award winners this year are wonderfully diverse. They include volunteers helping people overcome mental health problems through sport, volunteers using caravans as mobile cafe/information centres in geographically remote locations and another group mentoring children who have a parent in prison.

Representatives of Descendants will receive the award later this summer.

2019 is proving to be a great year for Descendants, we were recently named as the new Mayor Of Ealing’s charity of the year 2019, our new book is being launched on the 22nd June and the fifteenth Dr John Roberts CBE Q.C Achievement Awards on the 13th July. We are going from strength to strength!

Thank you to all of our volunteers, committee and of course the children for making this possible.

More information on the winners and the Award can be found at https://www.gov.uk/queens-award-for-voluntary-service