They’ve gone above and beyond
College and student initiatives have included:
■ The college distributed essential items to the local community to help in the response to the coronavirus outbreak. As soon as the college shut down on March 18 any fresh food – mainly fruit, vegetables, milk and yoghurt – from all three of the campuses was delivered to the Salvation Army base in Raploch.
■ Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) has also been in great demand in local care homes and other environments focusing on care. And with the college offering subjects where PPE is used regularly, it was able to send as much as they could to local worthy causes
■Three former Forth Valley College HNC students – calling themselves ‘The Three Musketeers’ on their Whatsapp chat – who progressed onto an Adult Nursing Degree at the University of Stirling – stepped up to the plate by volunteering on the NHS frontline as part of the 12-week placements.
■Caring ‘Working with Communities’ students set up a community hub to collect and distribute ‘isolation packages’ for vulnerable people in the Forth Valley area. The magnificent seven strong
HNC group have gone above and beyond their coursework by setting up the Facebook page to collect in essential donations of food and toiletries, to deliver packs out to people who are self-isolating for a fortnight due to the ongoing health crisis.
■ Students without access to laptops have benefited from a FVC scheme to deliver devices to their homes during lockdown. Around 360 laptops have been reconstituted by the IT Department and made ready for use by students living across Forth Valley, who previously did not have use of the machines at home.
■ A partnership between FVC and SP Energy Networks is providing home schooling for youngsters across the Forth Valley and beyond with its innovative STEM learning resource to support their home learning.
■ FVC staff who have helped develop a slick online digital community have gained further recognition recently. Engineering and science lecturer Nader Jarmooz, has been awarded Microsoft Innovative Education (MIE) Master Trainer status for teaching more than 650 FVC colleagues and staff from other colleges and organisations such as the NHS, in the use of the Teams application.
■The college recently formed a collaboration with Fife, Edinburgh and West Lothian Colleges to share resources and build on unique selling points to help the regional economies of Central and East Scotland to upskill and reskill.