Our Alumni Annual Fund supports the extra-curricular activities that help to make Exeter such a fantastic place to study. 

Alumni donations support student-led initiatives

Thanks to the generosity of donors each year, the Alumni Annual Fund is able to support a vast range of projects, from academic conferences to new sports kit, staging student plays to charity initiatives.

Last year, one such project to receive a grant was the University of Exeter’s Hindu and Asian Societies, for help staging their annual Diwali Celebration - their first in-person event since the start of the Covid Pandemic.

On Sunday 14 November 2021 more than 1,000 members of the University and wider Exeter community gathered for Diwali, the Festival of Lights, in the Forum Building on Streatham Campus. Starting with a Puja led by the Hindu Chaplain, the attendees were then treated to a vast array of activities, including live music, dance workshops and henna tattoo stalls. This was followed by several performances and showcases in the Great Hall before the evening concluded with a firework display outside the XFI building.

This event was able to go ahead thanks to philanthropic donations from our alumni community, and it not only enabled hundreds of our community to engage in this important part of Hindu culture, but it also helped the students running it gain valuable skills. One student on the committee commented that “It has been eye opening working with students on organising these events. You learn so much about religion and culture, and witnessing the way the students nurture their beliefs in a place they consider as a second home is wonderful… I am happy that we can bring home that little bit closer by setting up these important events!”

Alumni donations also allowed the First Aid Society to purchase a full body CPR Manikin. Whilst they already owned CPR manikins that are the standard head and chest without any legs or arms, the full body manikins have features that enable more detailed scenarios and provide for more realistic teaching. Some of the features of the new Manikins are replaceable pupils; allowing for the incorporation of dilated/constricted pupils into the scenario – an important symptom to recognize in some cases such as drug intoxication; and an inflatable circulatory system, simulating the feeling of a pulse.

The British Heart Foundation estimates that there are more than 30,000 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests in the UK each year and performing CPR can more than double the chances of survival. The society training leader, Beth Williams, commented that the purchase of this CPR manikin has “provided society members with an amazing opportunity to practice the first aid skills that they have been learning all throughout the year in a closer to life scenario than we've been able to provide before.”

Find out more about the Alumni Annual Fund on our webpages.

Date: 14 June 2022