Education Bursaries Opens to Residents Near New Children Hospital by Estephania Bedoya

By Estephania Bedoya

New Children’s Hospital’s Development Board and BAM fund and encourage education and training in healthcare and construction.

Residents of Dublin 8 and 12 can expect to benefit from Community Benefit Education Bursaries given by BAM, the largest multinational construction business operating in Ireland, who’s in charge of the construction of the New Children’s Hospital (NCH).

This BAM Fund will open applications for Education Bursaries for the academic year 2022/2023 this spring for residents of Dublin 8 and Dublin 12 as part of their Community Benefit Programme, established in 2015 by the National Paediatric Hospital Development Board (NPHDB).

The 2021 Education Bursary recipients, who applied earlier this year, will be enrolling in undergraduate and post-leaving certificates (PLC) healthcare courses; the announcement will come later this year. The bursaries will support €2000 for each year of their course. So far, between the winners of 2020 and 2021, eight students have benefitted from the initiative.

The Community Benefit Programme was established so the community could benefit from the hospital construction and operation through maximising employment and training opportunities, raising educational aspirations and supporting businesses

Paris Cheeba, winner of the BAM Community Benefit Bursary in 2020 said “it would have been extremely difficult” to attend university had she not received the BAM Education Bursary; she found out about it at school through her teacher. “I still would have (gone to university) because that’s important in my family… I’m really grateful the bursary allowed me to stay in college and just work the minimum amount of hours.”

The project plan for the construction of the NCH in St. James was approved in 2015. BAM was awarded its construction. Their aim with this fund is to ensure skills required for construction and operation of the hospital are encouraged in the local communities, which surround the hospital’s site. Besides providing paediatric healthcare, the new hospital will be a “primary centre for paediatric education, training, and research in Ireland,” according to its Development Board, creating a supportive environment for the community.

“The idea of the bursaries was to encourage people,” said programme manager, Ingrid McElroy. “It is about how we can give back to the community, and find our contribution unique. And I suppose our speciality is health, so we want to support health education and health literacy in the community.”

Other activities include a mentoring programme for the recipients, career days for local schools and hands-on experiences in healthcare and construction for primary schools, where children would receive talks from experts in these areas.

According to the NPHDB, they have pioneered “the most community engaged construction contract in Ireland” for the construction of the NCH which includes a social clause focused on ‘Targeted recruitment and training’. The clause works toward maximising employment through training and apprenticeship programmes targeted towards groups which include: long term unemployed, early school leavers, distant from the labour market or people new to the construction industry.

Aerial view of the New Children’s Hospital at night time. Photo courtesy of National Paediatric Hospital Development Board.