DIVING NEWS
Scuba charity wins Queen’s Award
The charity Scuba Diving for All (SDA) has received the UK’s highest honour for voluntary groups – the Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service.
SDA was set up 17 years ago in North Yorkshire to provide diving tuition suitable for people with a wide variety of disabilities.
More than 30 unpaid volunteers ranging in age from 10 to 78 help with providing one-to-one instruction for up to 30 people at a time at Ripon Spa Baths, and also raise the funds needed to be able to offer the tuition at heavily subsidised rates or for free.
SDA offers PADI courses and specialities from Discover Scuba up to instructor level.
The charity says it is the UK’s only scuba-diving organisation to offer such opportunities for people with and without special needs twice a week, and to receive the Queen’s Award.
28 October 2019
“The beneficiaries are often excluded from many activities by virtue of their disabilities or circumstances,” says SDA.
“Exclusion from these activities is harmful and also contributes to other negative effects on the lives of these people – for example, lack of confidence and lack of circumstances in which to socialise with others. SDA is making a real difference to real people.”
The SDA team received their accolade from the charity’s President, the Lord-Lieutenant of North Yorkshire Johanna Ropner.
