Participating in volunteering plays a crucial role in shaping the lives of young people, contributing significantly to informed and active citizens, the cultivation of successful learners and developing individuals with confidence who engage in deep learning across various domains.
Rooted in a broad, holistic understanding of education, Localise Youth Volunteering programmes provide a liminal space that amplifies personal, social, educational and economic outcomes for young people. Building empathy and awakening prosocial behaviours through volunteering for post-covid adolescents takes on extra significance as they are facing urgent personal and societal challenges, highlighted, and broadened by the impact of multiple crises, disinformation, and a growing racist undercurrent in Ireland.
The National Youth Volunteering Portfolio http://www.myvp.ie will allow young people build a profile of themselves through the prism of volunteerism. The platform provides young people with a space and a place to record their achievements, store their certificates of achievement, have their skills and attributes endorsed, outline their key learnings, reflect on their experiences and outline a vision for their future.
This initiative is open to young people up to the age of 23. The National Youth Volunteering Portfolio has the capacity to record, recognise and reaffirm the attributes, skills and learning gained through volunteerism, as a constant record of life events through this lens. It holds particular relevance for employability and as a record of the transversal skills in demand in the workplaces of the future.
Utilising the National Youth Volunteering Portfolio as an educational advancement tool, we prioritise people that have attended a DEIS banded Post-Primary Schools and those that are from communities of first and second generation migrants, youth aged International Protection applicants, Beneficiaries of International Protection, and Beneficiaries of Temporary Protection. We identify communities that have high levels of first and second generation migrants through the Department of Justice and CSO statistics. Certain courses of study in Further and Higher Education will take into consideration National Youth Volunteering Portfolio as evidence of accomplishments when allocating places for study.
The National Youth Volunteering Portfolio aims to provide a coherent joined-up support to inclusion throughout the education system and consequently across society. As a nation of volunteers (approx. 720,000 adults volunteer annually CSO 2022), The National Youth Volunteering Portfolio has the capacity to record, recognise and reaffirm the attributes, skills and learning gained through volunteerism, as a constant record of life events through this lens.
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