DCU announces three-year partnership with Barretstown Children’s Charity

25/09/2019

Dublin City University has announced a three-year partnership with Barretstown Children’s Charity to support their work with children and their families living with serious illness.

The announcement was made this morning by the President of Dublin City University, Professor Brian MacCraith, along with Dee Ahearn, CEO of Barretstown Children’s Charity, DCU Director of Human Resource, Marian Burns, and DCU Students’ Union President, Christine Farrell, at DCU’s Glasnevin campus.

Barretstown Children’s Charity offers free, specially-designed camps and programmes for children and their families living with a serious illness – supported behind the scenes by 24-hour, on-site medical and nursing care.

The inaugural charity partnership will engage DCU’s twenty thousand strong staff and student community in a range of initiatives, including fundraising for Barretstown, volunteering opportunities at Barretstown, internships, research, along with leadership and development programmes.

The purpose of the partnership is as follows:

To promote, and raise funds for Barretstown through a number of initiatives run by DCU staff and students.
To increase awareness and understanding for Barretstown amongst DCU staff and students, alumni, retired members of staff and DCU’s local community.
To offer DCU students an opportunity to engage, and feel a part of, the partnership, thereby leading to increased involvement in volunteering and fundraising activities.
To promote a cohesive culture across all the campuses of DCU by offering DCU staff an opportunity to engage in volunteering, skill-sharing exercises, team-building and fundraising activities through the partnership.

The President of Dublin City University, Professor Brian MacCraith, said:
“This partnership with Barretstown is a wonderful development for the University and is strongly aligned with our mission ‘to transform lives and societies’.
I am particularly pleased that it is a joint initiative between DCU students and staff and that it is focused on such an important cause. Our engagement to date with Barretstown has been hugely positive and we look forward to working closely with them in the years ahead.
To our knowledge, this is the first time an Irish university has established a charity partnership and the fact that this will enable sick children and their families to ‘press play’ on their lives is a source of great pride to all our staff and students.”
Dee Ahearn, CEO of Barretstown Children’s Charity said:
“We are honoured to be partnering with Dublin City University in what we believe will be a ground-breaking partnership in Ireland, bringing DCU staff and students together as one University supporting Barretstown.
We will ensure that all staff and students have the opportunity to make a real difference to the lives of children living with a serious illness and their families and become involved directly in all our volunteering and fundraising activities.
Every year Barretstown needs to raise €5.8 million and recruit over 2,000 volunteers to run our therapeutic programmes that serve children who suffer from serious illness, and their families.
The services provided to all the children and families who come to Barretstown are entirely free of charge, so volunteering and fundraising efforts are vital for us to help more seriously ill children to experience the magic of Barretstown each year.
Having a partner like DCU will help us to do that and I would like to thank the DCU team on behalf of the Barretstown campers, volunteers and wider Barretstown community for their support and generosity.”
The President of DCU SU Christine Farrell said:
“DCU Students' Union are delighted to be a part of today's charity partnership launch.
We look forward to many fruitful opportunities that this partnership will undoubtedly bring for both Barretstown and the wider DCU community - including helping our students to contribute to society as socially aware adults through participating in volunteering activities and collaborating with staff to raise awareness and much-needed funds as a collective team.
Barretstown is a magical place and we are eager to promote all the wonderful work that they do.”