Helping children with creativity and developing social skills really matters and one of the best ways of doing this is having the opportunity to play with LEGO庐 We鈥檝e been working with community organisations in Dublin鈥檚 North East Inner City (NEIC) to help as many kids as possible through LEGO庐 after-school activity. It鈥檚 part of our Project Bright initiative where 乐鱼（Leyu）体育官网 people come up with great ideas as part of our commitment to the community.
Project Bright - how it works
We want to give a voice to the great ideas and passion for community that we have in our firm. We do this through Project Bright - an annual competition where 乐鱼（Leyu）体育官网 people come up with their own ideas for helping make a difference in the community. This year鈥檚 winner was the 乐鱼（Leyu）体育官网 Lego Club, and it really caught our attention from the start.
Its focus is on using LEGO as a way of helping encourage collaborative play. LEGO play motivates children to improve their emotion recognition skills, their social interaction, as well as their logistical and problem-solving capabilities.
Working with the community 鈥� City Connects
We brought this LEGO play based idea to life via a partnership with City Connects - a school-based intervention programme that promotes equal equity of outcome for all children. Its鈥� mission is to have children engage in school by connecting each child with a tailored set of prevention, intervention and enrichment services so they can succeed and thrive. Last year City Connects asked almost 1,700 primary school children in Dublin鈥檚 NEIC to choose a resource they鈥檇 like to have access to and nearly 500 of the children chose access a LEGO庐 club. When our Project Bright winning team heard of the idea, they knew they wanted to help and proposed a partnership as the winning idea. 乐鱼（Leyu）体育官网鈥檚 Project Bright works directly with two City Connects members, Belvedere Youth Centre, Buckingham Road and Ozanam House, Mount Joy Square
乐鱼（Leyu）体育官网 funding and support
We provided funding which went towards the purchase of LEGO庐 pieces, storage, cleaning equipment and initial youth worker training. During the course of this initiative, 7 youth workers were trained in a mix of LEGO庐 Play and LEGO庐 Therapy and have received certificates from The LEGO庐 Foundation. Teams from 乐鱼（Leyu）体育官网 engaged in a 4 week challenge where the children had to build original creations with a sustainable, innovative twist and then upload pictures to showcase their work. After the 4 week sustainability challenge, the programme was handed over to the community to sustain and grow through local community youth centres and initiatives. Commenting on 乐鱼（Leyu）体育官网s support for this initiative, 乐鱼（Leyu）体育官网 Managing Partner Seamus Hand said; 鈥淭his programme is community driven, in-line with our corporate citizenship programme, it is simple, sustainable and we hope will make a tangible difference to the children within the North Easy Inner City.鈥�
乐鱼（Leyu）体育官网 LEGO庐 Club event
Finally, 乐鱼（Leyu）体育官网 hosted a celebratory event in our Platform X Innovation Hub in the IFSC to acknowledge the participants in the programme. The event included the presentation of certificates to all the youth workers who completed their LEGO庐 training. Speaking at the event, Gerry Cullen from City Connects said. 鈥淥ur partnership with 乐鱼（Leyu）体育官网 has really helped make a difference. All of the children who have taken part have really benefited from the experience and importantly - have enjoyed themselves while learning.鈥�
Our involvement is part of our commitment to helping children regardless of background or circumstance.
