Questions about volunteering, welfare, courses and references

No. You volunteer on a project you choose. There is no pay, no fee, no required hours, no deadlines and no penalties. You decide what to work on with your mentor, and you can stop at any time. If anyone ever asks you to do set work to their deadlines without pay, that is not what this is.

Basis: Programme terms. For your rights if unpaid work is really employment: WRC: unpaid work.

So your mentor knows the project, its history and where it is going, and can give you useful feedback quickly. They are early-stage projects run by the same small team behind The Academy. None of them is earning money yet.

Basis: Programme terms.

Practice on a real project, regular feedback from an experienced mentor, something concrete to show and talk about, and, if you want one, a factual reference describing what you actually did. We do not promise a job, an interview or a qualification.

Basis: Programme terms.

It might. Jobseeker's payments come with rules about being available for and looking for work, and volunteering is treated differently depending on the organisation and what you do. Tell Intreo before you start and follow their advice. We will give you a short written description of the project and your role to show them.

Basis: DSP: Voluntary Work Option. DSP: Jobseeker's Allowance.

Only your college can decide that. Ask your placement coordinator first. We can describe the project, your mentor and what you worked on, but The Academy does not award qualifications.

Basis: Programme terms.

By default, only you: you get a private reference. A named public page on builtinireland.ie is optional and needs your separate agreement to the exact wording. Being kept out of search engines is a separate choice, and a page kept out of search is still public to anyone with the link.

Basis: Google: noindex documentation.

Yes. Ask us and we will take down the public version we control. We cannot promise to remove copies other people have saved or instantly clear every search-engine cache.

Basis: DPC: right to erasure.