Eoghan, 19, Dublin

For Eoghan, Covid-19 has highlighted the lack of activities and support available to children living in emergency accommodation. He works in a Family Hub on a part-time basis, and increasingly since ‘lockdown’ began, he has noticed how little access the children have to activities and educational support. They are out of school and cannot see their friends, and Eoghan fears that they will fall behind in their development, both socially and academically.

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It is an important issue to him as a fervent supporter of access to education. To see so many children, who are already in a vulnerable position, miss out on what school provides, is worrying for Eoghan.

His idea is to use technology to help these children. Firstly, the Family Hub relies generally on donations for tablets and laptops, so if these can be secured it would help the staff in the accommodation to provide access to education and activities for the children.

Through the use of a platform like Google Classroom, the staff could then set daily activities for the children to complete, to help keep them occupied and entertained, and so that when they return to school they haven't fallen too far behind. It would help also to alleviate pressure from the children’s parents and guardians, who may already be finding the lockdown situation stressful.

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