Work Experience #2

For my second week of work experience, I'm in Focus Ireland, Dublin. Focus Ireland is an organisation that provides long- term and short term housing for people who are homeless or in extrememly poor living conditions. They also provide emergency accomodation and have a coffee shop for homeless people to come in and have something to eat, it's open everyday from 11:30am-8:30pm.

I work from 9:30am to around 5pm. On my first day here in Focus, I was updating the company's Media Contact database. I've been working on it everyday since. This is an interesting task as I get to see all the radio and newspaper contacts from all over Ireland that Focus work with. For the second half of the first day I went to a session with some of the customers that use the houses that Focus Ireland provide. I got to chat with the customers and find out how they benefit from using Focus Ireland's facilities. They were telling me about how they will be designing a garden in Phoenix Park for the Bloom Festival in summer. They are very excited about this project and it was great to see how customers like to get involved in the organisation.

I am currently working on a customer newsletter that is being produced. The great thing about this newsletter is that the customers are involved in it's production so it will be of more use to them. I am also writing an article for the Children's Rights Alliance newsletter about a conference that Focus Ireland set up on Youth Homelessness and how they are trying to get more Governments and Political Parties involved in eradicating child and youth homelessness in Ireland.

So far i'm learning loads and even though this is not likely to be a career path I will take, it's still a great experience. I'll write more at the end of the week :)

Ciara Xxx