MBA25 student Sara Fitzsimmons was awarded an MBE in the New Year Honours list for her services to bereavement following the success of her charity SiMBA.
Sara is the Executive Charity Director and co-founder of the SiMBA charity. Until November 2017 she practised as a midwife in Simpsons, Royal Infirmary, Edinburgh for 21 years. Although she has stepped down from the NHS, she continues as a registered midwife supporting parents and speaking at study days, conferences and seminars.
Sara has run SiMBA since October 2005. She explains how SiMBA first started: "In October 2005 I approached friends with an idea. I saw first hand the devastation that parents felt when they lost their baby; watching them leave the hospital with nothing more than a brown paper envelope and a Polaroid picture was heart breaking. I wanted to change and challenge the system; I wanted to help these families and give them much more. Our first fundraising event raised enough money to buy 100 Memory Boxes which we designed carefully and donated to Simpson's maternity unit in 2006."
SiMBA's Memory Boxes are now donated to over 200 wards across the UK, Ireland and even as far as Saudi Arabia, and the Memory Boxes are given to individuals on request.
Sara oversaw the first family room refurbishment in Simpsons maternity in the Royal Infirmary in Edinburgh; set up the first support group in the Scottish Borders, worked with a designer to create the blueprint for the first Tree of Tranquility and established multi agency training (in conjunction with Barnardos, Child Bereavement UK, Royal Hospital for Sick Kids and CHAS) on patient centered bereavement care. Sara also runs very successful drop in sessions in wards where SiMBA supplies Memory Boxes, offering explanation and feedback so our boxes are offered in the same way to every parent. Sara also spends a lot of time with student midwives, the future generation giving support to parents.
Sara is also kept busy studying for an MBA: "I'm now nearly two years into the MBA25 course at Strathclyde. I received a call pretty much out of the blue saying that someone had put me forward for a charity scholarship for the course - it was a bit of shock and I hadn't been thinking of studying at the time. I was sent all the information and invited to William Grants for an interview. The more I found out, the more I realised what an amazing opportunity this would be.
"I got support from my family and Charity Trustees then I received the phone call to say I'd been successful. I was scared and truly honoured at the same time. The journey so far has been totally amazing. It's definitely challenging - but it is an MBA after all!
"I have learned so much. I'm already able to apply so much to the charity - we have all changed so much, especially in the last year as I'm able to bring my learning back to the office. The Operations Management assignment is where the new Memory Box re-design idea started.
"The support I have received from the team at Strathclyde and William Grants is what is getting me through the course and I've been blessed with the most amazing cohort in class - the support is phenomenal. I just want to get to the end and I'm now hoping that I will have MBA as well as MBE after my name - how amazing would that be!"
This is taken partly from the SBS blog - read the full post here.