€700,000 has been announced for Waterford Library Supports as part of the Dormant Accounts Action Plan.
The announcement was made by Minister for Rural and Community Development, Heather Humphreys TD, and Minister of State with responsibility for Community Development and Charities, Joe O’Brien TD.
The Plan was designed to assist libraries in reaching out to older people, children from disadvantaged communities, people with disabilities, and other marginalised groups.
It hopes to help by providing programmes and equipment such as Touch Type Read & Spell which is a multi-sensory course that teaches touch-typing to help children and adults improve their reading and spelling skills.
C-Pens will also be featured. They line text scanners for those who have difficulty reading. An application called Times Table Rock Star will be introduced in the hope of making maths learning fun.
Waterford has also received funding to continue the Story Collecting Oral History project which has been running successfully across the county for the past two years.
"The programmes that will be put in place as a result of the funding, will galvanise our wide range of dyslexia-friendly services at our branches and allow us to continue to collect the great stories that Waterford people have to tell across the city and county,” Jane Cantwell, a Waterford City and County Librarian, said.
Funding will be provided to groups who provide autism supports and to those who work with hearing and visually impaired people, prisoners, and those with learning difficulties like dyslexia.
In the last round of funding, Waterford Libraries were awarded €33,597. This complements the €3.1 million recently awarded to expand the My Open Libraries scheme already in place.
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