Xilinx Make Maths Fun & Interesting for Local StudentsJohn Mullen, Senior HR Manager, welcoming students from St. Ronan’s S.N.S. to Xilinx Junior Achievement Ireland (JAI), in partnership with Xilinx completed a very successful Make Maths Matter Workshop on 15th February … Read More

Disney and Junior Achievement Ireland (JAI) Promote Healthy Living Students from Stanhope Street Primary School, Dublin 7 with Disney volunteers after the Disney Let’s Go programme The Walt Disney Company Ireland have partnered with JAI for the first time to … Read More

Students, mentors & guests at the Career Ready graduation hosted by Citi

29 students from three Dublin schools graduated from the Career Ready programme at a special ceremony hosted by Citi this week. To mark the completion of their two year programme the students were joined by the business volunteers who had worked as their mentors, representatives of supporting organisations and their special guests, Minister Paschal Donohoe, T.D., and Marissa Carter, CEO Cocoa Brown.

Minister Paschal Donohoe, T.D. during his addressCareer Ready develops students’ potential by enabling their involvement in a range of activities including working with a business mentor for 18 months, visiting workplaces, attending masterclasses and completing work placements. The overall aims of the JA Career Ready initiative are to help students to recognise their potential, to develop and increase their employability skills, support their academic work and introduce them to the world of work.  The programme runs over two school years and the 2014-2016 cohort comprises twenty nine students from St. Paul’s CBS, North Brunswick St, Loreto College, Crumlin and Our Lady of Mercy, Beaumont.

Marissa Carter, CEO Cocoa Brown, during her keynote address to students

The Career Ready 2014-16 mentors were supported by AXA, BNY Mellon, Citi and Pioneer Investments.  A & L Goodbody, Accenture, Cartrawler, Dell, Diageo, EisnerAmper, Gaiety School of Acting, JLL, LinkedIn, Roly’s Restaurant, Salesforce, Sunday Business Post, Twitter and TV3 collaborated with JAI to ensure each student completed an internship and attended masterclasses, while whole TY groups from the participating schools were accommodated in workplace visits.

Liselotte Bibow, Noah Mullen & Nicole Kerrigan from Scoil Chaitriona If you’ve ever watched the programme ‘Dragon’s Den’ then you’ll know just how hard it can be to impress the dragons. Sometimes the budding entrepreneurs find themselves leaving the room … Read More

Guest dignitaries celebrating with Career Academies graduates from St. Paul’s CBS Secondary School, North Brunswick Street, Dublin 7  Citi, North Wall Quay, Dublin 1 was the venue for a very special event on 11th November as 29 students from three … Read More

Nora McGrath, AIG with students from St. Joseph’s CBS Secondary School, Dublin 3 AIG continues its global support of Junior Achievement through a generous grant and JA Ireland has been chosen as one of the 19 recipients! JA will use … Read More

Pfizer Grange Castle kindly invited 15 sixth year Leaving Cert Applied students from Deansrath Community College in Clondalkin onsite to meet Pfizer Grange Castle’s staff who gave up their time to help the students develop a professional edge in interview … Read More

To celebrate 20 years in Ireland, Kevin Cooney & his colleagues at XILINX invited representatives from each of their community partnerships to lunch recently! JAI is delighted to be among a select number of fantastic initiatives, such as Án Cosán, GOAL, IT Tallaght & The Barrettstown Gang; which are supported by XILINX. 

XILINX and JAI is celebrating five years in partnership this year and in that time 96 volunteers have worked with 1,503 local students. This is a significant investment of resources as it equates to over 1,000 staff hours in fulfilling requests from local schools for JA programmes & events. While there is great fun involved, partnering with XILINX on targeted projects like Make Maths Matter, allows us to report significant learning as well.

Sincere thanks to HSBC Holdings plc for their continued support of JA More than Money More than 387,000 students in more than 40 countries have learned about earning, spending, sharing and saving money. To date, almost 6,300 HSBC employees have … Read More

The latest in the JAI Occasional Lecture Series was hosted by Pioneer Investments Management Ltd and enabled Minister Simon Harris, T.D., and Anindya Roy, Accenture to share their views on the future of the financial services industry and stimulate some very interesting exchanges with JA-invited guests from the sector this week. 

In welcoming everyone to Pioneer Investments, Robert Richardson, CEO, underlined his belief in the value of the work being done by his staff in volunteering with Junior Achievement and the critical nature of the work to promote financial literacy being championed by all the organisations represented at the breakfast briefing. 

Minister Harris articulated the vision for the sector set out in the IFS2020 strategy. In a wide-ranging address the Minister thanked all of the organisations represented for their investment in promoting financial literacy among the next generation and reinforced the value of enabling young students to participate in entrepreneurship education. “Such experiences allow young people to develop skills, including the need for resiliency in dealing with disruption, which will play an ever-greater role in the world of work and particular in this dynamic sector” he said. The Minster highlighted the goals of the working group on skills as a key part of the implementation of IFS Strategy 2020, and in chairing that group, he underlined his commitment to ensuring Ireland is well-placed to capitalise on opportunities in this industry into the future. He finished by welcoming the opportunity to hear the insights of industry leaders and the factors they see as priorities in terms of maintaining/ building the conditions for success, including developing future talent.