employment

32 organisations are set to benefit from fresh investment in the programme, which aims to tackle disadvantage through a social enterprise model.  

90% of employers are willing to hire former prisoners, but they say more guidance is needed

Ann is a former prisoner who has been working at The Mug Shot café, a social enterprise run by PACE, since May 2021. She spoke to Changing Ireland about life after prison.

“For some people, they had no idea that they had these skills until they got this opportunity." - The Dublin café providing jobs and barista training for people who have been released from prison

 David Doran worked until recently as an employment specialist with County Kildare Leader Partnership. He provided a new kind of support service for people living with mental illness who wish to gain employment.

An ambitious new ten-year national policy designed to support vibrant and sustainable island communities was launched by Minister for Rural and Community Development, Heather Humphreys this morning.

“There's definitely a question around women from ethnic minority communities’ experiences of the maternity services.” – Jenny Liston, Pavee Point A quarter of Roma women’s first contact with maternity services is when they arrive in labour at the hospital. Without translators available, patients and medics rely on Google Translate to communicate. We wouldn’t know about this if it wasn’t for the tremendous work being done with Roma people by Pavee Point.

More than 50 Connected Hubs hosted events nationwide on April 26 to celebrate the national ‘Connected Hubs Showcase Day’. Minister for Rural and Community Development, Heather Humphreys, launched the event at the Creative Spark Downtown Hub in Dundalk, County Louth. The programme included co-working crawls, talks from guest speakers, and coffee mornings all across the country.