This school year more than 300 national school children are benefiting from the advice and experience of volunteers from Donegal County Council, who are teaching Junior Achievement programmes in their schools.
These volunteers have helped the children gain a better understanding of the world they live in.
Junior Achievement (JA) is the world’s leading enterprise education organisation and Patricia Friel Co-ordinator of the programme in Donegal has said that she is delighted to have Donegal County Council involved.
“Donegal County Council has supported this programme for a number of years now and it is great to have them on board. The volunteers from the Council, who are mostly employees, bring a different dimension to the programme and it is great for the children and the schools to get to know the Council staff so well and vice versa. Each volunteer works with one school at a time and delivers a specific programme over a six week period”
Christina O’Donnell, a clerical officer in the Community, Development & Enterprise section of the Council taught the “Our City” programme in St. Patrick’s National School, Lurgybrack, Letterkenny with Ms. Green’s third class.
Christina together with her students built a new city. The students constructed paper buildings and mapped out a city on the correct zoning. They also wrote class newspaper articles, planned their own restaurants, and examined the importance of the banks role in doing.
“It is not just about teaching the children about how things actually work but it is about giving them the confidence and empowering them to use their own ideas and their own thoughts to shape how they would like their city to be and what is important to them.
“It was great to see the children working together, developing and sharing their ideas and bringing their city to life” says Christina.
There are 10 employees from Donegal County Council volunteering with schools throughout the county and any school interested in participating in this programme should contact Patricia Friel on pfriel@jai.ie