Tarian Cymru fundraising group supplies first PPE to Wales’ health and care workers

Equipment purchased by a new campaign group formed to raise money to protect frontline Welsh health workers is now being used in hospitals and GP surgeries.

Tarian Cymru has already raised over £18,000 towards buying personal protective equipment (PPE) and the first 600 visors arrived and have been distributed around Wales this week.

The fundraising campaign is run as a crowd-funding initiative on the GoFundMe platform, with a team of volunteers working to get the right PPE to the workers who need it most.

The first order was immediately distributed to individual boxes and sent out to the hospitals and surgeries throughout Wales who have requested them on the Tarian Cymru website.

Tarian Cymru also distributed three large orders of gloves, before receiving 700 more visors for distribution.

“More orders are on their way,” said Iestyn ap Dafydd, one of Tarian Cymru’s volunteers. “There are more gloves coming, and we’ve ordered masks and a huge load of medical gowns. There is a high demand for them, and stories in the news every night about the severe lack of this equipment.”

Message

The campaign group is also encouraging people to share the donation link online via a website, podcast, Facebook group, WhatsApp or Twitter account.

They are also calling on musicians to put together songs to drum up interest and artists to donate art that could be auctioned to raise more money.

During this week, there is also an online auction to raise funds. Bids are being received all week on 14 items on the Tarian Cymru Facebook page, with the aim of raising additional funds. Several other schemes are also in the pipeline to boost the funding available.

“The Tarian Cymru campaign needs donations – there is more demand for equipment than there is money to buy at the moment,” Iestyn ap Dafydd said.

“And to spend the money in the best way possible, we need health and care professionals to continue to fill in the form on tarian.cymru to ask for the protective equipment that they need.

“We order what health and care workers say they want via our website. The thing is, prices are constantly changing. If we don’t have the money when equipment is available at a reasonable price, we have to wait, and people who have asked for help have to carry on without the equipment. I can’t over-emphasise: We need donations, and we need them now, to continue to protect people, and save lives.

“For us to get the most out of the campaign, people should carry on spreading the message throughout Wales, so we can raise as much money as possible, to protect as many health workers as possible.”