Category: news

In 2001, Jennifer returned home for good and Patricia O’Connor let her know that Donnybrook Travel – a company which had purchased Travel Machine – was looking for an accountant.

And she stayed there until 2006, when a spanner was thrown into the works.

“This was another big hit really,” Jennifer recalls.

“In 2006, I was made redundant because the internet had really impacted the travel industry.

“People just didn’t really need travel agents to book their basic travel arrangements anymore.

“Why would you go to a travel agent when you could just book it on the internet?

“At that stage, I was at a crossroads and my confidence was at rock bottom because I knew travel agents inside out but there was no jobs in the industry.

Read the full article HERE.

“There is no clear path through life,” Liz says.

“You learn as you go.

“I always tell my kids, don’t have any regrets in life because ultimately, you learn from them and they can make you what you are today.

“I try to tell them that as long as they give something a good shot, then there is absolutely nothing to worry about.”

Growing up in Kilnamanagh, Liz attended St Kilian’s National School.

“I was fairly tame in school, it was only when I left that I went a bit… wild,” Liz says with a chuckle.

“I did what I was told and didn’t question authority at all really.

“If you were to look back at my report cards, they all say ‘Liz is not achieving her potential’. It wasn’t that I was a trouble maker or disruptive in class or anything. I just didn’t apply myself and wasn’t engaging really.

Read the full article HERE.

It just so happens that Brendan Hyland, an Olympic swimmer, spent his fundamental years living across the road from a swimming pool.

Some might say its faith, luck or whatever else.

But like Roman philosopher Lucius Annaeus Seneca once said, “luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity”.

Read the full article HERE.

Hayden Moore talks to Jenessa Scott, who has married her ambition and initiative with great effect, scaling the heights to become a mechanical engineer.

Day-to-day, the Tallaght woman plays a key role in project management, identifying materials with different venders to supply clients.

“I really like the challenge of it,” she says.

“No project is the same, you’re working with different people and different personalities all of the time.

“You’re working with vendors and clients, and trying to balance that is very interesting and challenging.

“You’re never on a project too long, so the job is spontaneous and has great flexibility.

“I couldn’t do the 9 to 5 behind a desk five days a week”

As part of the job, Jenessa will get the opportunity to work abroad with PM Group and this is something she is building towards.

That hunger and drive to work for everything is something that was passed down to Jenessa and her four siblings by the matriarch of the family, Patricia.

Read the full article here!

We are delighted to launch a new Inspiring People feature with The Echo Newspaper! Our aim is to provide a diverse range of inspiring career examples to local young people. Enjoy, share, and please sign up to volunteer for Inspiring the Future Ireland over at our website! The first feature is the inspirational Leon Diop of who had an inspiring journey.

“Flying in the face of adversity is  something that Leon Diop thrives in.  You could say that up to this point, the 27-year-old’s life has been defined by backing himself and taking chances, even if the odds seemed stacked  against him or things weren’t easy.  Today, the Crumlin resident finds  himself as the Chief Executive Officer of Black and Irish and works with business communication platform, Slack.“

Read full article here!

Super news! We are BACK for the September 2021 school season. Teachers, sign up here!

We have some exciting FREE Careers Programmes offered exclusively to schools in South County Dublin.
As you may know, Inspiring the Future Ireland, is a careers awareness programme targeted at 5^th and 6^th class, which helps children build a foundation for future career success. Our mission is to offer children in this community the inspiration, motivation, knowledge, and skills to help them achieve their future career potential. 89% of students who have taken part in Inspiring the Future Ireland have learned something new and useful for their career ambitions.

Our Programmes

1. Career Networking Events: Volunteer speakers from a wide variety of sectors will meet with your students to engage in a fun and interactive discussion about their career journey, pathways to their type of work and their sector in general. We’ll do all the work to organise the sessions and provide helpful prompt cards to assist your students with engaging in meaningful discussions.
2. ‘Find Your Inspiration’ Careers Programme: This programme offers everything you need to run a careers module with your students. This FREE programme offers full teacher training and a ‘Find Your Inspiration’ Pack that includes; 8 lesson plans, careers tools and puzzles, games, and careers maps unique to South County Dublin.
3. STEM Workshops: This year we will also offering a series of STEM workshops in partnership with Amazon Web Services to celebrate Tech Week in October 2021. Sign up to our mailing list to keep up to date on announcements.

The advantage of choosing us to compliment your teaching is our programmes are proven, through extensive research, to have a positive and lasting impact on young people’s future career trajectories. We offer full teacher training for our FYI programme and we do all of the work for our Career Networking Events. All you need to do is sign up and we’ll look after the rest!

For more information or to sign up or a free workshop contact Triona on triona.reid@sdcpartnership.ie or 0861380248 or visit our website: www.inspiringthefutureireland.ie

Or sign up here!

Welcome, Secondary Teacher! I hope you had a wonderful summer and are settling back into the new school year. Great news, were back with our FREE Careers Programmes offered exclusively to schools in South County Dublin. Sign up here!

As you may know, Inspiring the Future Ireland, is a careers project that helps students build a foundation for career success. Our mission is to offer young people from this community the inspiration, motivation, knowledge, and skills to help them achieve their career potential. 89% of young people who have taken part in Inspiring the Future Ireland have learned something new and useful for their career ambitions.

Our Programmes

1. Career Networking; We’ll arrange volunteer speakers from a wide variety of sectors to meet with your students to engage in a 1-hour facilitated discussion about their career journey, pathways to their type of work, and their sector in general.
2. Virtual Work Experience: This year we will be offering virtual work experience with some of the country’s biggest employers in engineering, technology, journalism and more! If you are interested, please get in touch quickly as places are limited.
3. Talks, workshops & webinars: Throughout the year we will be running a series of talks, workshops, and webinars to celebrate key dates such as College Awareness Week, International Women’s Day, and Tech Week, amongst others! Join our mailing list and follow us on social media to keep up to date.

The advantage of choosing us to compliment your teaching is our programmes are proven, through extensive research, to have a positive and lasting impact on young people’s future career trajectories. With funding from Bank of America and Google, and a position on the South Dublin Chamber of Commerce, this programme has contacts with many high-profile employers in some of Ireland’s most desirable sectors.  Our unique career talks are endorsed by the schools we have worked with in the past with 100% of teachers we worked with last year reporting that our programmes had a positive impact on their students.

All you need to do is sign up and we’ll look after the rest!

For more information or to sign up or a free workshop contact me today at triona.reid@sdcpartnership.ie or 0861380248 or visit our website: www.inspiringthefutureireland.ie or sign up here!

It’s hard to believe it’s summer and we’re finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel during this challenging time. We wanted to send a warm thank you to everyone who took part in this academic year’s Inspiring the future Ireland events. Let’s recap!

Recap of 2021 Events So Far

• Online
• Virtual Careers World events

We are so looking forward to more innovation, fun, and inspiration over the summer period, and to the upcoming academic year. Everyone has an inspiring story to share, you may think your story is ordinary, but it could resonate with a young person in ways you can’t imagine!

Good news – there are still plenty of opportunities to get involved over the summer. The academic year is coming to a close, but we have a host of opportunities for grabs! We are launching an ambitious communications piece this Summer and we want you to be at the forefront. Your voice is so important to us and we want to spotlight your work! We are looking for volunteers to:

– Become an advocate for ITFI by getting your colleagues to sign to be on our database of contact (you will then receive emails about volunteering opportunities up here).

– Do a Twitter takeover for one day – We had our first takeover last month by Bank of America’s Ciara Murphy. Check out one of her tweets here. We are looking for volunteers could do the same, the young people and teachers would love to hear about your workday!

– Write a guest blog post for our website! We want to highlight your stories, your thoughts, and your career story! We’re looking for volunteers to write short posts which we will feature here.

– Create a TikTok! We need TikTok makers! Could you share career tips, your story, fun ideas, and more? You could make a simple video showing “my morning routine before work”, or “my favourite work task vs. my least favourite work task”, or “a day in the life of a ____ (insert you job title!), we’re open to ideas!

If any of these opportunities interest you, please sign up here and we can send more information. We would love to hear your thoughts, set times for you to take part, and get you involved! Want to get involved but aren’t sure you know how? Don’t worry, we are here to organise and support you every step of the way.