Lifesavers

Through the power of unity on a single day of action, every year, thousands of members of the public are taught Basic Life Support skills in Mosques around the UK & internationally.

Lifesavers started in 2014 as the ‘BLS Mosque Project’, teaching life-saving skills in three Mosques in London. By the Mercy of Allah, the project has expanded each consecutive year. Alhamdulillah, through the immense efforts of the team, in 2019, over 840 volunteers came together to teach BLS to over 4000 members of the public in 114 Mosques nationwide. In 2020, the team was able to deliver the first-ever virtual national BLS teaching programme.

The BIMA Lifesavers programme follows the BHF Heartstart programme teaching: CPR, Recovery Position, Management of choking.

Each of these skills are taught in a three-step method: A thorough explanation of the theory at the beginning, A practical demonstration, A chance for participants to practice and perfect their technique.

As-salam u alaykum, Earlier this year we saw a footballer, Christian Eriksen, be saved on the pitch after medics and teammates, knew and performed CPR. This was a lucky occurrence however sadly; the incidence of cardiac arrests is increasing year on year. If you or I were to suffer an out of hospital cardiac arrest on our streets, there’s only 10% chance that we would survive.

From what started off as an idea to now being its 9th consecutive year of delivery, it is solely reliant on the power of unity – the healthcare professionals, the congregation, and the mosques alike, on a single day of action, every year. Prior to the pandemic, in 2019, the project expanded to over 115 mosques across the UK. In 2020, like many other services, the project was delivered online, and once again in 2021, we returned to Mosques where over 80 Mosques across the UK and 13 countries globally participated.

Lifesavers aims to combat this at grass-root levels by uniting healthcare professionals and students to teach lifesaving skills to members of the public. We utilise Mosques as the centre of our projects; encouraging them to open their doors year-on-year to their local congregation to learn these skills. Lifesavers has been pivotal in allowing us to bring health and wellbeing discussion into mosques who may not have had access to their local healthcare professionals and connected professionals to their local mosques and communities.

Alhamdulillah, the project has gone from strength to strength forming alliances with Resus Council UK and NHS recognising the efforts, as well as publications on the delivery and faith-driven approach- these have been a way to promote the great work of mosques in the papers that have recently come out.

The impact of Lifesavers has been seen in real-life experiences that we hear back from learners every year. Sadly, however, there’s always messages and fellow attendees who come to the volunteers saying ‘If only I had known this a year ago… I could have saved my loved ones’ life.’

Wassalam,

BIMA Lifesaver Directors

As-salam u alaykum, Earlier this year we saw a footballer, Christian Eriksen, be saved on the pitch after medics and teammates, knew and performed CPR. This was a lucky occurrence however sadly; the incidence of cardiac arrests is increasing year on year. If you or I were to suffer an out of hospital cardiac arrest on our streets, there’s only 10% chance that we would survive.

From what started off as an idea to now in its 8th year, we would not be able to deliver this project without the unity, determination & efforts of our National Teams & Regional Teams alike!

The strength of Lifesavers comes from the Regional Teams who work at the grassroot levels - supporting healthcare professionals to deliver Lifesavers in a Mosque of their choice & volunteers who provide the essential on-the-day teaching.

If you are a Mosque interested in bringing Lifesavers to your community- email [email protected]

Please email [email protected] if you would like to participate in the national or regional team!