Below you’ll find details of completion allowances for Bronze Award and Silver Award participants who commenced their award between September 1st, 2019 and August 1st, 2020 and were unable to complete their award due to COVID-19 restrictions.
We understand some PALs may not have been able to help participants fulfill the final elements of their Bronze or Silver Awards due the more heightened restrictions of COVID-19 and limited access to their participants. In these exceptional times, we want to help those young people complete their awards. Here is what is possible:
Adventure Journey
The undertaking of an Adventure Journey is optional for the period mentioned above for Bronze and Silver participants registered during this time. Whilst we highly recommend this experience for all participants, we also understand that for a variety of reasons relating to COVID-19, this is not possible for the aforementioned participants.
Other Challenge Areas
Where the personal skill, community involvement, or physical recreation challenge activity hours are not fully complete, Bronze and Silver participants may compress the hours remaining for any unfinished challenge up until September 30th, 2020.
This means participants can devote more than 1 hour per week to finish their award activities in those challenge areas. We would ask that PALs ensure that any compression of hours is manageable so that participants are getting the most from their participation and that Gaisce continues to be an enjoyable experience. Contact your Development Officer for any advice and support.
Award Completion on the online system
If participants complete the award as above, they are eligible to be marked as complete by their PALs on the online system by September 30th, 2020.
Should participant wish to finish their award under the normal award level requirements for Bronze and Silver they can also do so, and as ever take as much time as they require to finish their award. Medals and Certificates will be dispatched to PALs. Gold participants should complete their award in accordance with the usual requirements. Gold participants and PALs can email gold@gaisce.ie for support and guidance on completing the Gold Award during COVID-19.
Please note this completion flexibility is approved for the period mentioned above only.