“St. Kevin’s Chllenge ias an ideal event for us. As an organisation, we set out everyday to help people realise their full potential. There is hardly a better way to embody that then to take a walk to Glendalough. We also hope that the event will generate much needed funds from our organisation this year and in future years”, Said Sr. Jean Quinn, Joint Founder and CEO.

If you and your family and friends are interested in exploring one of Ireland’s most scenic and spiritual location with your friends and family while helping to raise funds for the homeless and vulnerable people.

Please contact Florence McDonald on 01 473 8300 of fmcdonald@sophia.ie.

CELEBRITIES, PROFESSIONAL GUIDES, REFRESHENTS, CAR PARKING, CERTIFICATE OF COMPLETION AND LOTS OF FUN!

Please spread the word on to your family and friends and get on track. It may only be January but what better time than to get your new year’s resolutions into action!

Contact Sophia now for your event sponsorship card and fundraising pack, as well as any other fundraising materials you may require. Please email Florence at fmcdonald@sophia.ie.ie or phone 01 473 8300.

Sophia will issue all participants with an extra-special race T-shirt! Sign up and get your sponsorship card today.

Registration for the mini-marathon opens on the 22nd February. You can sign up online on the event website or submit your form, which will be published every week in the Evening Herald.

It was a great success and we would like to thank the transition year students from St. Aidans Whitehall who sang christmas carols and collected money for Sophia.

We also want to thank Sophia staff and friends who supported this venture and a special thanks the Capita volunteers who turned up to help us. We collected €712.

Well done and a very merry Christmas to you all.

Sophia Housing has now joined Facebook, please like our page to receive updates.

To see our Dine with Friends Brochure, click the link below:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IK226Eu8WyEcwx8N7c33i5fgJ9Mrc478jCsnT8rg-F4/edit?hl=en_US

A reminder for the Flora Mini Marathon

The 2010 Flora Women’s Mini Marathon takes place in Dublin on Bank Holiday Monday, June 7th.

Join our Sophia Mini Marathon team to have fun, get fit and raise funds in support of Sophia Housing Projects. You can run, jog, walk …

Entries for the race opened on March 3rd, 2010 so hurry and register and don’t miss out on this special event.

Make the commitment to Sophia – join our Mini Marathon Team now!

Mary McAleese and Jean Quinn

Thanking the President for marking the special occasion, Jean Quinn D.W., founder and joint CEO of Sophia, commented:

Since its formation Sophia has worked with 240 families and single people. In 2009, we currently care for 129 families and 66 single people and plans are well underway to extend services in 2010 to other locations in Dublin City, Sligo and Westmeath. Sophia has achieved much in our first ten years, with the help of our donors and supporters, and we are ambitious to further extend our services in the coming years. What keeps us going is our commitment to people with special needs.We are convinced that Sophia has a solution to addressing homelessness, and we know from real and personal experience, that it works

Homelessness in Ireland has changed significantly in the ten years of Sophia’s existence. The period has been defined by a number of notable changes including the introduction of an integrated state response by the creation of a Cross Department Team on Homelessness under the auspices of the Cabinet Committee on Social Inclusion.This was in recognition of the fact that homelessness needed a multi-faceted approach, requiring accommodation, health, welfare, education and preventative measures in order to be effectively addressed. This response, coinciding with the establishment of Sophia came in the form of Homelessness: An Integrated Strategy published in 2000.This represented the first formal attempt to address homelessness in a coordinated way in Ireland.
Since then the levels of interventions into addressing and preventing homelessness have been significant, which is conveyed by the most recent assessment on homelessness Counted In, 2008 from the Homeless Agency.

During the week of the survey in March 2008, “Counted In” found that there has been an increase of 4% in the number of households accessing homeless services in Dublin, with 2,144 households experiencing homelessness in 2008 compared with 2,066 households in 2005. However, it is important to note that Dublin’s population has increased by 5% since 2005, so the homeless population in 2008 represents an effective decrease of 1% relative to population growth in Dublin.

In 2008, a total of 110 adults have reported that they are sleeping rough compared with 2005, when 185 adults reported sleeping rough, representing a decrease of 41%. Sophia is committed to securing resources to continue its work over the coming decades and to working in partnership with other services who are addressing the needs of people experiencing homelessness in Ireland to meet the objectives of:

1. Preventing homelessness
2. Eliminating the need for people to sleep rough
3. Eliminating long term homelessness
4. Meeting long term housing needs
5. Ensuring effective services for homeless people
5. Better co-ordinating funding arrangements
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