The Charity

The charity was established in November 1999 and it is primarily used to improve the quality of life for those children from around the province who are on dialysis, have had a transplant or who are being treated for kidney disease.

The best advert for life after transplant is the British transplant games, held at a different location in the UK each year. We strive to send as many kids as possible to this event to let the public at large see the importance and success of transplantation. It is a proven statistic that the host town or city increase its donor list by a significant number as a result of staging the games.

We also use our funds to help modify the homes of our children who may have special needs, we also encourage our nursing staff to avail of whatever training is available, when necessary we contribute from our fund to ensure our staff have access to the best equipment and best training available.

The charity at present has three trustees, Prof Savage, Dr Mary O'Connor and myself. Originally there were 4, unfortunately Mr Jim Cullen, a transplantee himself died and has not yet been replaced. We do not have an elected committee as we believe that all our families have the same ownership of the charity. Stephen Watson of BBC sport is our patron and give up a lot of his time and raises a considerable amount of money for the charity - he is probably NI's most famous transplantee.

Keith Smith