Fáilte Ireland – Time to Read

Friday, May 8th, 2020

Jackie Vella from Fáilte Ireland’s HR Department shares their experiences of the Time to Read programme.

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Over the last three years Fáilte Ireland has been delighted to work with Business in the Community on the Time to Read initiative as part of our Corporate and Social Responsibility programme.  We were very lucky to be partnered with St. Joseph’s School (known around the area as Joey’s) in Fairview, which is an amazing primary school located only a few minutes away from our Head Office in Amiens Street.

In the course of the programme, our staff volunteers take turns to read with the Second Class pupils over a twenty-week period usually for about an hour a week. Together with the school, we launch the programme at the school early in the year when the children get to meet the volunteers assigned to them for the first time. The children are usually very shy to begin with, but over the course of the programme you can really see their confidence build and the difference that the Time to Read programme makes.

Included in the programme is a library visit as well as an invitation to the whole of Second Class to visit our offices in Amiens Street. This includes a tour of the building and a visit to the volunteers’ desks. The building is always full of excitement as the groups normally take part in a range of activities, including virtual reality tourism experiences such as rock climbing, surfing and horse riding, and a demo of the recording studio to learn about the equipment we use to create videos and podcasts. The workplace visit is always the highlight of the Time to Read programme for the children, volunteers and Fáilte Ireland staff alike and there is always a great buzz in the building when the children visit us. The day usually ends with lunch in our canteen.