Allianz Expands Student Mentoring Programme
Allianz Worldwide Care has been involved in the Schools’ Business Partnership since 2007 and has worked with St. Dominic’s SS, Ballyfermot which is an all-girls school on both the Skills @ Work and the Mentoring programmes. The mentoring programme with St. Dominic’s has been a great success and Allianz Worldwide Care very much wanted to give the opportunity to their male employees to become involved in a mentoring programme. St. John’s College De La Salle, Ballyfermot which has approximately 420 male students was the ideal match for the company. The principal Ann Marie Leonard, the school coordinator Sarah Kennedy and the SCP coordinator Thomas Leigh were absolutely thrilled when they were approached about their students becoming involved in the mentoring programme.
The launch of the programme was held in the school on the afternoon of Tuesday the 3rd of February and the school extended a fantastic welcome to both the company coordinator Barbara Walsh and the mentors. Once the initial welcome speeches where completed, BITCI’s Miriam Kenny announced the mentor and student matches. The students and mentors then broke into pairs and introduced themselves. It was the first time for the thirteen mentors and students to meet and both the mentors and students were very nervous at the outset. They needn’t have been as there was such a buzz in the room everyone seemed to get on very well indeed with them all having lots to talk about. The launch was a great success and everyone is looking forward to the first mentoring session on Wednesday March the 4th.
Claire Cusack, Head of Human Resources, Allianz Worldwide Care:
“We are delighted to embark on this new partnership with St John’s College in Ballyfermot. We’ve had the enormous pleasure of working with St Dominic’s girls school in Ballyfermot since 2007 and wanted to seek out opportunities to support a local boys’ school as well. We employ people from 63 different nationalities and as a consequence our staff come from a very diverse range of backgrounds and professions. Our employees are eager to play an active role in initiatives that support our local community and have volunteered for Spanish & French language tutoring, as well as the Skills at Work Programme and Student Mentoring Programme. The commitment of our staff to these programmes is reflected in our high engagement scores, with 91% of our employees in the 2014 staff engagement
survey considering the company’s approach to Corporate Social
Responsibility as positive.”
