KPMG & Fighting Words - Supporting Young Imaginations!

Jack from Audit working with a student from St. Patrick's Boys National School, Ringsend, Dublin 4

KPMG & Fighting Words - Staff Are Part of the Team at Primary School Workshops!

Staff from across the organisation inspired by the creativity of young authors at our Dublin centre

Since June, staff at KPMG have been volunteering at story writing workshops for primary school classes at the Fighting Words centre in Dublin, in addition to helping at our summer programmes.

Complementing the support for programmes like Word Warriors, the afterschool programme for writers aged 8-12 from the north inner city, volunteering at the workshops provides an opportunity for KPMG staff to see first-hand the value of helping children to express themselves through writing.

Below are just some of the KPMG staff who have volunteered at our workshops:

Sophie, Annie and Sophie from the Risk and Management Consulting Teams

Yvonne from M&A, Leanne from Legal and Vidisha from Audit

Yvonne from Mergers & Acquisitions, Leanne from Legal and Vidisha from Audit

Abi, Clare and Tara from Strategy & Operations, Jack from Connected Tech

Aoife from Strategy & Operations, Sinéad from Connected Tech and Elle from People & Change

Aoife from Strategy & Operations, Sinéad from Connected Tech and Ellen from People & Change

Jack from Audit and Alicia from Risk

Sarah & Kalia, Financial Services and Tara & Gemma, Management Consulting

Working in Partnership to Make Volunteering Easy

KPMG staff sign up in groups of 2-4 people to help out at the daily story writing workshop for primary school children at the Fighting Words centre in Dublin.

"We’ve had huge interest from volunteers for the upcoming workshops with multiple volunteers signing up for each day," said Claire Galvin, Assistant Manager, Corporate Citizenship, I&D.

Working with Operations Manager Sara Bennett, KPMG staff sign up for designated days, making it easy to take part.

"KPMG staff have been a hugely welcome addition to our volunteer team. It's great to see them interacting with the students and enjoying a fun and creative morning. We look forward to welcoming additional staff in the future!" - Sara Bennett, Operations Manager

Inspiring and Creative

Some of the KPMG staff have had direct experience working with children, e.g. coaching, but for others it was their first time. All have found it to be inspiring and rewarding and many would welcome the opportunity to volunteer at additional sessions.

Fun and Structured

The story writing workshop is in two parts: group work following by individual writing time.

Following a brief orientation, KPMG staff are assigned roles in the first half of the workshop ranging from hanging up coats to helping count votes as the children decide on the characters and their greatest ambitions and fears in the group portion of the story. In the second half, staff have the opportunity to support small groups of children as the work on their own writing, either continuing the group story or creating something new.

"We had so much fun unleashing our own creativity along with the children!" - Sarah, Kalia, Tara and Gemma