Latest News
South Dublin Tidy towns 01 February 2012, 12.15
A South Dublin County Tidy Towns public meeting is taking place in Tallaght Stadium on Thursday 16th February at 7.30pm. Speakers will include a Tidy Towns competition adjudicator, Public Realm Designer, speaker from Lucan Tidy
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Volunteer Centre Newsletter - January 12 05 January 2012, 16.58
Volunteer Centre Newsletter
Monday 9th January 2012
New Community Hub Announced.
Are you a small community group in South
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Celebrate Volunteering! 17 November 2011, 14.40
Celebrate Volunteering on 5th December International Volunteer Day
As you know, 2011 celebrated the European Year of Volunteering and we had many events in South Dublin
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New quality mark for volunteering! 07 November 2011, 15.25
Volunteer Ireland is delighted to announce that they recently secured funding from the EU as part of the European Year of Volunteering 2011 to develop a framework for a national quality standard for involving volunteers. This
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Volunteer Centres Ireland has some good news for the Joint Oireachtas Committee. Representatives from Volunteer Centres Ireland (VCI) will meet with the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Arts, Sport, Tourism, Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs on January 28th 09 to discuss the growth and progress of volunteering infrastructure in Ireland since the committee launched its report “Volunteers and Volunteering in Ireland” in January 2005
The 2005 report recommended the expansion of ‘volunteering infrastructure’ and Chairperson Tricia Nolan, CEO Yvonne McKenna and Board member Tina Roche from Business in the Community, will today highlight how Volunteer Centres Ireland has grown from a group of eight centres to a strong network of twenty volunteer centres located across the nation with a database of nearly 17,000 volunteers.
 Yvonne McKenna, said of the meeting, “ We are delighted to have the opportunity to update the Joint Oireachtas Committee and impress upon them the value of volunteering, especially in today’s economic climate. Our Volunteer Centres have seen a 65% increase in the numbers of volunteers registering in January of this year compared to last year. With more and more people citing unemployment as a motivation to volunteer, that number is likely to increase even further.
Volunteer Centres Ireland hope to drive home the positive image of volunteering in Ireland that they are capturing and the value of volunteering as a worthwhile endeavor. Volunteering, especially in these times, gives people an opportunity to make a difference, pull together, improve and learn new skills and keep active if they are temporarily unemployed.
In 2008 more than 7,500 individuals registered to volunteer and over 3000 of them were placed in some of the 2,400 organisations registered with the centres. Of those 7,500 volunteer 33% were not Irish nationals and 56% of volunteers had never volunteered before. Young people were very actively engaged with 69% of them under 35 and 50% of the aged between 16 and 25. 200,136 hours of volunteering were generated (equivalent to 114 full-time employees).
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