Kainos props up 'school on stilts' website

04-12-2006

by Maxim Kelly

Dublin's inner-city 'school on stilts' has gone online with the help of twins seeking to bridge the public and private sector divide.

Jackie Maguire works with Lourdes Youth and Community Services built above the Rutland Avenue School playground on north Dublin's Sean McDermott Street, while her twin Annemarie works for technology firm Kainos. When the two sisters sat down to discuss how one could help the other the result was the new LYCS website created by Kainos.

"We were having a LYCS management meeting last year talking about setting up a website and tendering for the work, but I remembered Annemarie and I mentioned it to her. She linked up with her colleagues and Kainos very kindly offered to do the work," Jackie told ENN.

"It was an informal as that to be honest, although I'm good at roping my family into doing voluntary work and they've all had to do something."

The website, officially launched by Taoiseach Bertie Ahern on Monday, has already been up and running for several weeks and was shortlisted for the Golden Spider awards in the Best Social Networking, Community & Not for Profit category.

It's understood Kainos and its partners invested around EUR70,000 and several months work into the project. Ektron and Eircom also donated free software and hosting services.

"More than ever, government agencies and not-for-profit organisations are turning to the web to deliver relevant information and interactive services to their constituents," said Damian Kelly, Director of Consulting at Kainos. "To be successful they need to present a powerful vision and build stronger relationships and communities online. In developing this website we helped LYCS to build an interactive communications channel, which can be easily managed and adapted to reflect the vibrancy and energy of the local community."

LYCS director Sarah Kelleher told ENN the website would be used as a training tool for local people to learn online editing skills and much of the content will be produced by its users.

"Not everyone around here has the internet at home and literacy is a huge issue. An important resource for local teenagers will be that they can take photos of local events and publish them on the site," she said.

"This initiative with Kainos is a good example of the private sector and public sector coming together. There's seemingly no lack of will in the private sector for these type of things but we never meet each other. As a voluntary community body we don't have the resources to go out and lobby for this kind of support because we are too busy dealing with 300 people using our services every week," Kelleher added.

Kellher is currently looking for funding for a new building to house the expanding service.

Speaking at the launch of the online service, the Taoiseach -- who is also the local constituency TD -- commended LYCS' work in the community since 1984.

"I know that LYCS is deeply indebted to Kainos, the IT company who developed the website for free. This venture provides us with an excellent example of the voluntary sector working in partnership with the public sector. Many congratulations are due to Kainos for putting so much into this project and for producing such a fine end product," he said.