14 young people were awarded certificates of completion this week for finishing a 6-week employability programme at St. Catherine’s Foyer, a Peter McVerry Trust youth homeless service in Dublin.

The Foyer provides safe and supportive accommodation to 18-25-year olds who are homeless or in serious need of housing. Focus is placed on personal growth and development with a holistic approach to meeting individual needs.

The employability programme, delivered by FIT (Fastrack to Information Technology), helped participants to explore their own skills and the types of careers they may be interested in, prepare a CV and find and apply for courses.

They also visited an advanced manufacturing training unit where they met engineering students on a Level 6 course and had the opportunity to ask the tutor and the students some questions.

Melissa, one of the young participants, said: “A lot of the younger people that don’t have the Junior Cert, Leaving Cert or even computer experience were really interested. They were shown by staff that there’s always a way forward, especially when it came to the FIT courses that were offering Level 6 courses and jobs after.”

Thomas, who also completed the 6-week programme, is due to start an engineering course that he discovered through FIT this month.

“When I was in the engineering course, I was just taking in every last detail. It sounds like it’s something I want to do. I’ve been telling everyone about it. I’ve told my mum, my dad, my family, my friends, I’ve told everyone about it. I definitely wouldn’t have come across the course unless I had done this programme with FIT.

“It’s different than school. It’s learning something you want to learn. It wouldn’t be hard to learn something that you want to learn. With school, not many kids like every subject, they won’t be the best at every subject because they’re not going to learn something that they don’t want to. I learned everything about that course because of the fact that I want to do it.”

FIT (Fastrack to Information Technology) is a representative organisation of the technology sector committed to growing Ireland’s tech talent pipeline, working in close collaboration with national education and training provision, national and regional development agencies and community organisations.

Congratulations to all those who took part and our sincere thanks to the team at FIT.