A total of £2,000 was raised at this year’s Wave Awards for the charity Mercy Ships.

Attendees to The Wave Awards ceremony at Royal Garden Hotel in Kensington, London, donated £1,550 as part of the charity raffle and Real Response Media rounded up the donation to £2,000.

Prizes donated to the raffle included a week on Royal Caribbean International’s new ship Harmony of the Seas and a half crate of champagne from Uniworld.

Sarah Balser, Head of Fundraising at Mercy Ships UK, said: “The Wave Awards was an amazing platform for Mercy Ships to highlight our work with the cruise industry as CLIA charity of choice. MD Chris Pitchford has been very generous to Mercy Ships and we are extremely grateful for his support.”

She added: “The funds raised on the night form a significant contribution to our work that will change the lives of men, women and children living in extreme poverty, and in need of critical surgery in Africa.

“Our floating hospital ship is docked in Madagascar and our  volunteer crew, who live and work on board are providing much needed hope and healing in the form of surgery and healthcare, free of charge, to the forgotten poor.”

Mercy Ships is an international charity and was founded by Don and Deyon Stephens in 1978. They purchased a retired ocean liner called Victoria for £600,000 and spent four years transforming it into a hospital ship. The vessel was equipped with three operating theatres and a 40-bed ward.  In 1982 the ship was christened Anastasis and carried a crew of 350 volunteers from all over the world.

The charity’s ships have visited more than 450 ports in developing nations around the world, most notably including Togo, Sierra Leone, Guinea, and the Republic of Congo.

Learn more about Mercy Ships at www.mercyships.org.uk

The Wave Awards 2017 will be on February 16 at the Royal Garden Hotel, London