Cumulative funding of €4.85 million pledged to education
Closing out an exceptionally difficult year on a positive note, we are delighted to announce funding agreements throughout 2022 of just over €1 million, bringing our cumulative investment in educational to over €4.85 million. This additional funding is made up of four significant grants to Archways, Business in the Community, Foroige and Kinea along with a number of smaller supplementary grants to ongoing programme partners.
Our latest commitment to Archways aims to tackle the growing strain on services in the commuter belts head on. Over the next two years we shall invest a further €300,000 to expand the Incredible Years programme to 20 additional schools in Kildare and Meath and consolidate existing work in Fingal, Waterford Cork and Limerick.
Our goal is to reach 6000 additional students aged 4 to 16 with an emphasis on areas of economic disadvantage.
Building on the exceptional achievements of students participating in the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE) programme, we have also renewed funding of €224,265 with Foróige to extend delivery of this programme for a subsequent three years.
The NFTE programme is currently active in 24 schools and youth outreach centres across Cork. This grant will continue to sustain and grow the programme and it is hoped to reach 1500 young people participating in 44 locations over the next three years.
We shall be announcing an exciting new partnership in 2023 deepening our relationship with Business in the Community, committing €150,000 to an internships programme within the funds industry. Over the next three years, 100 students from 50 DEIS schools in Dublin will be offered internships during their transition year. In addition 20 students from the North East Inner City schools will be offered paid internships of 6 to 8 weeks after completion of their Leaving Cert.
Our final grant of the year, €120,000 over 3 years, was awarded to Kinia, an education focused non-profit, charity and social enterprise, formed by the amalgamation of two previous partners SUAS and Camara. We will introduce you to their work in greater depth in the new year. Suffice to say, we are delighted to have found a programme that takes up the mantel of numeracy development in primary school children called MathsWhizz.
Using gamification, Maths Whizz will be delivered to an additional 30 schools who support marginalised and disadvantaged young people across the country. MathsWhizz is an online tool that allows children to progress at their own speed allowing the classroom teacher to manage children of different abilities within the same class.
MathsWhizz has already been implemented in 28 schools throughout the 2021/2022 academic year. Research during this period has shown that there was an average improvement of almost 21 months in the child’s maths age, once the recommended 30 minute weekly usage goals were adhered to. Throughout the lifetime of the grant, funding will expand MathsWhizz access to an additional 900 (300 per year) students.
Early in the year we reiterated our commitment to expanding our geographic reach and to strengthening our commitment to support young people in non-formal elements of education. Taking these latest grants into consideration, cumulative funding for educational programmes outside of Dublin, now represents 61% of our grant allocations and young people will get support in areas of non formal education that they need.
Our industry collaboration is gaining momentum. We are helping tens of thousands of children to reach their potential. Yet the need for support is very real.
We are just getting started.
