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NEWS FEATURE
TRINITY NEWS January 13, 2009
Count me in: your guide There have never been more opportunities to spend some time volunteering. The experince can very rewarding, as this week’s RAG Week will prove, writes Niall Walsh
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T’S THAT time of year again. The t-shirts have arrived, people are getting ready to lose items of clothing in exchange for money and dignity, and of course, volunteers will be shaking a bucket to try and raise much needed funds for Trinity’s Volunteer Societies. I’m talking of course, about RAG Week. Trinity’s RAG Week is unique in so far as the money raised actually goes to supporting student volunteering initiatives within the college, as opposed to simply fundraising for an outside charity. Trinity has a long history of volunteering and getting involved in the local community. Throughout the years, Trinity’s students have excelled themselves in their capacity to effect change in these communities. As time has gone on, and as the gap between the rich and the poor in Ireland has grown, the role that students have to play in bridging this gap has become more and more important. Trinity, in many ways, exists in a sort of bubble, housing some of the country’s brightest young minds yet surrounded by some of the city’s poorest communities. This process has been picking up speed in a big way over the last ten or fifteen years and again, students have been at the heart of it. Just as
the Saint Vincent De Paul Society was created by a student in nineteenth century France, Frederic Ozanam, numerous initiatives, such as the Voluntary Tuition Program and Suas, have been created and driven forward by Trinity students. If you look at the massive amounts of people that both of these organizations have benefited it is incredible to think that these were just ideas in the heads of students not too many years ago. One of the ways in which the current crop of Trinity students is attempting to bridge this gap is through a focus on education. This is an area in which huge inequality exists in terms of opportunities available to children; and the Vincent De Paul Society, Suas, and the Voluntary Tuition Program all have projects dedicated to helping students from disadvantaged areas reach their potential. The societies’ work in helping students from both primary and secondary schools and the impact that they have, both in their capacity as role models and in the practical help they offer, is pretty astonishing. Niall Walsh was head of Trinity VDP in 2007-2008. He is currently head of TVOF, an umbrella term for voluntary organisations in Trinity.
SUAS at home and abroad
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OTH SUAS (St Connell’s School) and the Vincent De Paul (St Enda’s and St. Audeons Schools) send volunteers almost every day of the week to Homework Club’s in primary schools located in the city centre. These homework clubs are run by parents and teachers in the local community, who recognize how difficult it is for these children to get down to completing their homework in the face of often unstable domestic environments. The clubs run from 2.30 to 4pm – essentially keeping the children in school an extra hour and a half, to at least make a start on what they need to have done for the next day. Some of the clubs have as many as 60 children in one large room, and as few as four parents and two teachers to help. As such the role that Trinity students have to play in providing one to one assistance and guidance for the kids is crucial and more importantly they get to have a lot of laughs with them along the way. The Vincent De Paul also organized presents for the 150 or so children they deal with who are in primary education and I personally was lucky enough to attend the Christmas Party, where the presents were given out after the much more important, and hotly contested, talent show was out of the way. While the practical impact may not be easy to see from volunteering with primary school children, it would
not be fair to say the same about the work that Trinity students are doing with secondary school students. Both Suas and Vincent De Paul help out at refugee centres in the city centre, and provide help and assistance to Leaving and Junior Cert students who are living there, often completely separated from their natural families. At the VDP centre the volunteers help in a broad range of subjects, from Physics to English and from Maths to Science. Volunteers at the Suas centre, on the other hand, focus solely on English language classes and their help is on a completely one-to-one basis, almost in the form of mentors. The rapport which is built up between students and volunteers over the course of the year is a wonderful by-product of the mentoring, and last year there was even a St Patrick’s Day party thrown for the refugees. Another superb education based project run by Suas is the Bridge to College Programme, based in Oriel House on Westland Row. The programme provides students from designated disadvantaged second-level schools with an innovative technologymediated learning experience and was established in 2007 with the help of the Trinity Access Programme (TAP). The main aim of the B2C is to demonstrate the power of technology to facilitate a dynamic, creative and cross-curricular learning experience. The B2C is designed to engage young people,
typically Transition Year students, in creative, technology-mediated projects, mentored by volunteers from the Dublin based student Suas societies. The programme trains its volunteers with the necessary technology before they begin mentoring so don’t worry if, like me, you are not the most tech-savvy person in the world. It is truly remarkable that the Suas society keep all these projects running amidst all the fundraising work they do for their overseas partners in India and Kenya. The Suas movement, all told, includes student societies all over the country, and of course a head office, out of which the entire organisation is run. The Suas Trinity branch was one of the first student societies set up and is always heavily involved with the larger Suas publicity and fundraising efforts. They run many events with the aim of advocating for multi-culturasim in Ireland and also run Global Issues seminars to inform students, and the wider public, about the key issues in the developing world. Every year a huge fundraising drive is set in motion by the larger Suas organisation to raise crucial funds for their primary and secondary school partners in India and Kenya. Suas Trinity get involved in organising volunteer collectors for face painting on the streets of Dublin on St Patrick’s Day, run a Christmas collection in the pubs around Dublin, among other initiatives.
SUAS » Suas runs diverse projects such as the Bridge to College (B2C), Refugee mentoring and Homework Club among others » The B2C programme, organized in conjunction withe the Trinity Access Programme (TAP), is a cross curricular learning experience, in which volunteers from Suas based societies get to work with Transition Year students in technological project. » Suas also sends volunteers to the Dublin Central Mission on Abbey Street, to chat with refugees in beginner English classes, in an informal setting » The Suas Volunteer Programme sends 80 students abroad every Summer to volunteer in five partner schools, based throughout Kenya and India. » Suas Trinity plays a crucial role in fundraising for these partner schools.
Trinity students share their knowledge
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HE LEADERS in Trinity when it comes to providing voluntary assistance in education are the participants in the Voluntary Tuition Programme. The programme was founded in the 1980s and since then has grown exponentially, currently helping over 300 primary and secondary school students in the local community. One huge reason for this growth was the foundation of the Trinity Access Programme in 1994. This initiative was set up to attempt to make it easier for students from poorer socio-economic backgrounds to reach third level education in Trinity. TAP has worked with VTP to help them deliver their programme and also helps fund the work that they do. The programme is based in four city centre locations: St Andrews Resource Centre on Pearse Street; Goldsmith Hall; Ringsend Technical Institute; Pearse Area Recreation Centre, and the children come from a plethora of schools based all over the city, ranging from Ringsend technical to CBS Westland Row. The kids are then paired up with student volunteers and receive one-to-one tuition once a week for the academic year. The single best thing about VTP though, is the continuity it offers for the students who are involved, many of whom lack such stability in their home life. In many cases, pupils stay with the programme from primary school to Leaving Cert level, and have the same tutor for several years. F o r the primary level, particular emphasis is placed
on the younger children developing numerical and literary skills in an unthreatening and enjoyable way. At secondary level, students request specialist tuition in particular subjects, whatever they feel they need help in. The aim of the programme is not only to improve academic performance, but also to stimulate interest in learning, and encourage the children to continue in the education system. As well as catering for primary, secondary school students and refugees there is also a separate project that aims to help facilitate kids who are particularly high risk. In the Parallel Programme volunteers spend the first hour teaching the 13 secondary school students involved and then have the second hour free to take part in more enjoyable activities like ice skating, rock climbing or even a competitive five-aside game of football. Both VTP and VDP have moved to increase the number of fun-based activities for the children in an attempt to strike a balance for the kids and of course to let them show their wacky, creative sides. In 2007, the Vincent De Paul set up Art, Drama and Dance Club’s a n d year have brought this even further with the creation of a Music
Club. The Dance Club is run with a school just off Connolly Street and the three other clubs are run in conjunction with St. Enda’s Primary School. These clubs have been hugely successful since their inception and have gone down really well with the kids, who always seem keener on them than they do on their homework! The Dance Club will be putting on a show later this year and then the Art, Drama and Music clubs are coming to the Atrium in Trinity on the 27th April to perform for any interested Trinity students. The children’s parents will of course also be invited, but I would thoroughly urge you try and make it along, even if it is only to relive your own first experiences with that most complicated of all instruments, the tin whistle! The Voluntary T u i t i o n Programme has been developing their own set of activities since 2001. At present they also have Art,
Drama and Music Clubs which take place in St Andrews Resource Centre and run along the same lines as the VDP activities but take place, in contrast to the VDP activities, in the evening. All of these activities are run by one fantastic volunteer, who also helps run homework clubs and Music Clubs for Vincent De Paul. This example highlights just how hooked some people can get on volunteering, and how much of a difference one person can make to the process. Suas also runs a programme which tries to strike the work/life balance in the volunteering that they do. This term they have begun sending volunteers up to the Dublin Central Mission on lower Abbey Street to get them to chat to refugees in beginner English conversation classes. This is an informal way to get involved, and a great change to get to know people from other cultures without the pressure of an open book in front of you.
VTP
» The Voluntary Tuition Programme was founded in the 1980s and is currently working with 300 schools to offer assistance in various aspects of education » VTP offers tutoring in four different locations around the city: St Andrews Resource Centre on Pearse Street; Goldsmith Hall; Ringsend Technical Institute; Pearse Area Recreation Centre and the students come form a wide range of schools
» It also runs Art, Drama and Music clubs each week, to strike a balance between educational time and social time » The Parallel Programme is another component of VTP, as it works with 13 secondary schools students on a two hour basis, again combining education and recreation