DCCC manager Avril McMonagle
More than 250 people gathered in the Clanree Hotel on Friday for a Donegal County Childcare Seminar ‘Investing in Every Child’s Right to Education’.
The Seminar was organised to mark the half way stage of an Atlantic Philanthropies funded project that sees a number of early childhood services in Donegal take part in a national training initiative aimed at informing early years policy.
Donegal County Childcare is only one of 11 projects nationally to be successful in securing funding to take part in this national initiative.
Avril McMonagle, County Childcare Manager received high praise at the event for her work in bringing this valuable project to the county.
Delegates included representatives from the Donegal early years and primary school sectors, County Childcare Committee representatives from counties Meath, Sligo, Dublin, Carlow, Kilkenny, Louth, Monaghan and Roscommon, representatives from the HSE, VEC, FAS, and students and lecturers from LYIT.
The event was also attended by an impressive range of public representatives including 6 County Councillors and Deputies Padraig Mc Loughlainn, Charlie McConalogue and Thomas Pringle.
A range of interesting presentations were included in the programme not least a very thought provoking and inspiring presentation by Avril McMonagle.
She outlined what needs to be done to sustain, improve and protect Donegal’s large early childhood workforce and infrastructure highlighting the need to protect local service delivery in Donegal.
Avril urged the 250 strong crowd to pay attention to the importance of the early childhood sector in County Donegal as a core component of our employment, economic and enterprise infrastructure and one that will play the most pivotal role in enabling people to return to work as the economy improves.
Speaking after the event Avril commented ‘We are absolutely delighted with the response to the event. We had to change venue at the last minute due to huge interest – this is a great testament to the interest in early childhood education in Donegal and I would like to thank everyone for taking part and supporting us in our work’.
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