A most impressive awards ceremony for 50 FAS Community Employment participants was held in the Nano Nagle Resource Centre, Carrick-on-Suir, on Thursday.
Senior Community Development Officer Community Services at FAS Waterford, Richard Grant, presided at the special occasion.
Richard has been directing the five CE Schemes in the Carrick-on-Suir area since taking over the position, following the ret
irement of Dave Kennealy some years ago. FAS deserve immense credit for the benefits resulting from the schemes, not alone to the participants but to the wider community.
The awards presented ranged from individual FETAC minor awards to FETAC major awards. Richard said the fact that this had been achieved under the CE programmes was in itself an excellent achievement.
Opening the prestigious occasion, Richard welcomed the large and representative attendance that included Town Mayor Sylvia Cooney Sheehan. He said the occasion became possible because of the co-operation he received from the scheme supervisors – Vicky Wells, Debbie Murphy, Paddy Stallard, John Murphy and Jim Hawkins in identifying suitable training programmes that engaged the participants on the various schemes.
He praised the sponsors of the programmes for their continuous support of training interventions for the participants in order to support progress.
Richard said the awards very much reflected the type of useful work being done by the participants across a wide sector, including healthcare, sport, arts, culture, tourism, enterprise and the environment.
Mayor Cooney Sheehan congratulated all involved, including the successful participants, supervisors and sponsors.
Speaking on behalf of the award-winning participants, Helena Power detailed her experience on the Ossory Parishes Scheme and she thanked her supervisor and sponsor as well as Development Officer Richard Grant and the staff at FAS, Waterford.
Helena qualified as an IT Trainer and had the opportunity to teach ECDL and other computer courses, in addition to gaining experience in office skills. Helena is commencing employment soon, teaching computer skills with a new training agency.
She mentioned some of the organisations in the parish to benefit from the CE Scheme, including Tidy Towns and the Sue Ryder Nursing Home, and the immense contribution the Scheme had made in contributing to the overall community in the parish.
Due to pressure of space and time, the address by Marius Cassidy, Manager Community Services in the FAS South East Region, and further details of the five schemes will appear in next week's edition.
