The Poems have been promoted in various ways - through internal communication systems, such as newsletters and websites, or through the press, most of it unsolicited.
Often I am approached individually by someone who has chanced on that publicity. Others were browsing the internet "with intent."
Enquiries come from all walks and levels, the only real common factor being a prevailing high enthusiasm. In fact, perhaps the least successful way of promoting this project has been the purely hierarchical. The flyer hits the desk of the Chief Executive, part of his or her daily storm of incoming mail, and is instantly “cascaded” down the hierarchy. Several weeks later one hears from a couple of ground level administrators of the organisation—whose instructions have often been garbled during the long journey down through the system, and they have little idea of what this is all about and, quite understandably, have little personal interest in it. Why should they ?
On the other hand one keeps hearing from individuals (including ground level administrators) who are acting on their own initiative and have seized on the poems with genuine enthusiasm—and it is these people who have brought them to life in their places of work.
Here below are some facts, figures, names and stories.
Numbers of Poems Distributed
Well over 2,000 packs of poems have been distributed to healthcare and similar centres since the project began. This constitutes approximately 200,000 individual poem posters.
The healthcare centres range widely and include hospitals, health centres, hospices all over the UK (and occasionally beyond) ; also centres for social care such as mental health drop-in's and mutual support groups and hostels for people with learning difficulties.
In 2007, the project was advertised in a Foreign Office newsletter and in consequence a significant number of UK embassies across various continents requested packs of "Poems for..one world." They included the embassies in Tunis, Gabarone, Hanoi, Havana and Rangoon.
Later in 2007, the scheme was promoted on education and libary websites and the response was huge. Much of the reason is the issue of diversity. The "poems for... one world" selection points the diversity lesson as vividly, simply and beautifully as anyone could want. Schools and libraries all over the country are now in receipt of these poems.
Numbers of Sites in receipt of the poems
Overall, well over a hundred hospitals have made direct requests for the poems, from across the UK. Some hospitals such as the Central Middlesex asked for several packs – one pack for each interested department.
Over 300 health centres have requested the poems, from across the UK. But the poems belong outside healthcare boundaries too. There have been a large number of requests from different kinds of site in which there is waiting or similar open space. For details, see below.
Following a mail-out in 2003 to NHS “Modernisation Leads”, (a role now sadly defunct) over 600 packs of poems were delivered to NHS Strategic Health Authorities and Primary Care Trusts across the UK, for distribution among their local hospitals and health centres.
Following publicity on education and library websites in 2007, there have been many further requests from this new source. Most have come from people whose job it is to progress awareness of and teaching in diversity issues across an area, covering a number of schools or libaries ; or else from people working in a main library, which relates to various library branches round about. So it is impossible to say precisely how many schools, or how many libraries are now displaying the poems, following their delivery. But again, here is another potentially huge readership for this project, which is nation-wide. I can say with some confidence that, since Autumn 2007, nearly 200 schools up and down the country have received of a pack each of the poems ; and 50 libraries up and down the country have requested and received a pack each of the poems.
Possible Audience Numbers
Hospitals : we have estimated that 730 people sit in the average hospital’s waiting rooms each week. Over the year this works out at 37, 960 people per hospital.
Health Centres : we have estimated that 1,096 people sit each week in their local health
centre. Over the year this works out at 56,992 people per health centre.
Schools : many secondary schools cater for over 1,000 pupils.
The EU Enlargement poem collection : on a single day April 29th 2004 (the Foreign Office Open Day) nearly 10,000 people scanned or studied the EU poems.
Health Centre outside London :
The poem packs have been requested by large numbers of Health Centres in London. Health centres outside London include sites based in
Exeter, Gateshead, Tyne and Wear, Litchfield, Swindon, Oxford, Malvern, Edgbaston, Hull, Bristol, Manchester, Edinburgh, Harrogate, Hastings, Dollar Clackmannanshire, Cambridge, Horsham, Yoeville, Ayr, Esher, Ross-on-Wye, Sheffield, the Outer Hebrides.
Hospitals in London in receipt of the poems
Large numbers of London hospitals have requested these poems. They include : Guys ; The Royal Free ; Royal London Hospital ; Chelsea and Westminster ; St Charles, North Kensington (psychiatric) ;
Mount Royal Outpatients (psychiatric Out-patients) ;
Gordon Hospital, Pimlico (psychiatric, Psychology and OT Depts) ; Queen Mary’s Hospital, Roehampton ; The Royal Marsden, Chelsea ; Middlesex Hospital, Mortimer St (Radiotherapy) ; Great Ormond Street, VCB Recovery Unit ; West Middlesex Hospital, Isleworth ; Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Woolwich ; Hammersmith, (Dept of Paedriatrics) ; Tavistock Hospital ; the Maudesley (psychiatric) Southwark SE1 ; The Royal Homeopathic ; the Central Middlesex Hospital ; St George’s Hospital, Tooting.
Hospitals outside London in receipt of the poems
Alexandra Hospital, Reddich, Worcs ; Cardiff and Vale NHS Trust ; Chesterfield Royal Hospital, Derbyshire (Day Services) ; Cherry Knowle Hospital Sunderland (mental health) ; Heartlands Hospital, Birmingham ; University Hospital, Birmingham ;
Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham ; George Eliot Hospital, Nuneaton ; Frenchay Hospital, Bristol ; Dumfries General Hospital ; Medway Maritime Hospital (5 packs sent on request) ; The Royal Hospitals, Belfast ; Queen Mary’s Hospital Sidcup, Kent ; the Royal Bolton Hospital ; Mayday University Hospital, Croydon ; St Mary’s Hospital, Isle of Wight ;
St Mary’s Hospital, Hathersage Road, Manchester ; Ipswich Hospital (8 packs sent on request) ; Royal Sussex County Hospital ; West Suffolk Hospital ;
Seaton Hospital, Devon ; Cromer Hospital, Norfolk ; Royal United Hospital, Bath ; Warminster Community Hospital ; Hull Royal Infirmary, Oncology Dept ; the Royal Shrewsbury, Accident and Emergency, Taunton and Somerset ; Whitchurch Hospital, Cardiff (Day Hospital) ; St George’s Hospital, Morpeth, Northumberland
Other Sites in receipt of the poems
Bexley College (student Counselling service) ; Welfare Rights office, Social Services, Sunderland ; Clinic of Natural Medicine, Bristol ; Mental Health Crisis Night Shelter, Islington, London ; Clinical Psychology Dept, Crumlin Road, Belfast ; Bolton Hospice, Trinity Hospice Clapham ; Age Concern, Hereford and Worcester branch ; Relate, Kidderminster branch (Marriage Guidance) ; Surgery, Cardinal Hume Centre, SW1 ; LB of Merton, Town Hall ; Newcastle City Health Sensory/Community Garden ; Sevenoaks Citizens Advice Bureau ; Drama Centre, Prince of Wales Road, London NW5 ; Yarrow Housing Ltd (for people with Learning Difficulties) ; MIND Centres in : Camden, Brent, Orpington, Brentwood, Westminster, Kensington and Chelsea ; Harrow Association of Disabled People ; Galway Arts Centre ; Health Centre, Maitland, Australia ; various prisons : the British Embassy in Macedonia ; the British High Commission, Windhoek ; a school in the West Indies for children who have learning difficulties and/or who are deaf ;
a police diversity unit in Cumbria ; the Mayor of London’s Equalities Report, 2007.
Two Stories
In May 2003 I delivered 300 packs of 100 poems each to Peter Spilsbury at the Birmingham
In the Autumn of 2007, I delivered 114 packs of 145 poems each to Amy Thompson, Advisor for Ethnic Minority Achievement in Medway, Kent. Amy wanted a pack to give to each of the schools in her area. Again it was raining and a very high tide was forecast that evening. We unloaded the poems quickly at dusk, with the wind getting up and Rochester Castle looking fine across the mouth of the river.
Press Coverage
PWR has featured in The Guardian 4 times, including once in the News
Section. It has appeared twice on guardianunlimited, three times in The
Times, once in The Independent. Various local papers, professional
journals and organisational newsletters have featured the project at
different times over the years.
