Globally today, there are almost 800 million people who have little or no access to education. Adults and children who do not have basic literary skills. Back in 1820, the world's population from secondary school age onward had a literacy rate of only 12%, according to The World Bank.
In 1900, it exceeded 20%. From the 1950s on, world literacy began to improve significantly, hitting 42% in 1960 and 70% in 1983. Today, the global literacy rate stands at 87%, or almost nine out of ten people worldwide.
Here at EazyCity we believe that education is a basic human right for all and that everyone should have access to. In this big world of ours we also want to do our small part. In the last 18 years we have been promoting study language programs and professional internships to thousands of young European and US students who wish to improve their language skills as well as develop important soft skills, useful for their personal and professional growth.
We care about the world we live in and we would like to share with you these important organisations we find inspiring and motivating:
Eighteen years of EazyCity, wow! We only started celebrating our company anniversary from our 5th year in business. We did not celebrate our 1st year, probably because we were so busy building the company that we didn't think it was important, or may be we didn't expect to last more than a few years.
Julia and I started this business to essentially make life "eazy" for students looking for a house, a job or a language course in Cork, where it all began. We absolutely loved opening other branches in Ireland, UK, Spain, Italy and US. So far helping students and young professionals to settle into a new country has been very rewarding and fun. Over the years we met so many interesting people from pretty much all over the world. Since 2004 we welcomed people from over 60 different nationalities.
This year's anniversary is special because we had two difficult years because of the pandemic. We feel very fortunate to have a fantastic team and to still have the same passion for this great industry.
Happy Birthday to us!
Enrico Zoppi & Julia Lynes
EazyCity Founders
Here at EazyCity we strongly believe in inclusion, in freedom of speech and most importantly we believe in the freedom to be whoever we want to be.
Watching Madame Drusilla Foer, the charming and cultured artist (alter ego of Gianluca Gori) giving an incredible speech about inclusion from the stage of the 72° Edition of Sanremo Festival - the most important Italian music event, reminded us how vital it is to be ourselves, without any "masks" to please society. The main message was to listen to people with an open mind, without prejudice.
We would like to share Drusilla's speech:
"Diversity is a word that I don't like, it has something comparative and a distance that doesn't convince me.
I find that words are like lovers: when they no longer work, they must be changed immediately.
I looked for a term that could replace such an incomplete word. And I found it: Uniqueness.
I like it, it's a word that everyone likes. We all think we are unique.
Easy? Not at all.
We need to understand what our uniqueness is made up of, what we are made of.
Beautiful things. The ambitions, the values, the convictions, the talents. But the talents must be trained, followed. We must have responsibility for our own convictions. We must take care of our own strength. It's not that easy.
Getting in touch with one's uniqueness is a crazy job. How do you do it?
I would have a way. All the things that live inside us we take them by our hands.
The take beautiful ones and the ones we think are ugly and we lift them by our hands. They rise together with us, in the purity of the air, in the freedom of the wind, in the light of the sun, in a big loving embrace and we cry: "What a beauty, I am all these things!".
It will be crazy cool. And it will be great to embrace our uniqueness. Let's try the greatest revolutionary act that can be done today, which is listening. Listen to others, listen to the uniqueness.
Let our thoughts flow freely without prejudice, shame, and let us free ourselves from the imprisonment of stillness."
The Irish Government allows an extra 30 cents compared to 2021 which brings the minimum national wage to €10.50 per hour.
| Category of Employee | Hourly Rate |
| Aged 20 and over | €10.50 |
| Under 18 | €7.35 |
| Aged 18 | €8.40 |
| Aged 19 | €9.45 |
The pandemic has affected our Study Travel Industry.
In 2020 all destinations experiencing a decline in the value of their English Language Travel business of between 51 and 81%. Overall the US dollar value of the industry decreased by US$5,534,277,684 between 2019 and 2020 with some destinations expecting greater losses in 2021.
Please find below a few stats from the Study Travel Network official website. More stats via this link
At EazyCity we care a lot about the world and we believe that it's very important to know the facts about the following topics:
Every year our team is involved in a charity / environment project. We love playing a part and give our tiny contribution for a better world. In 2019 our management team was in Amsterdam collecting plastic from the canals.
We recently came across the Swedish Foundation called GapMinder, founded in Stockholm on 25 February 2005 by Ola Rosling, Anna Rosling Rönnlund, and Hans Rosling, a very important physician, academic and public speaker.
Their mission is pretty simple but so powerful and we wanted to share it with you:
"Our mission is to fight devastating ignorance with a fact-based worldview everyone can understand."
Most people have a more dramatic view about the world, GapMinder is a great platform to learn more about our society.
Gapminder identifies systematic misconceptions about important global trends and proportions and uses reliable data to develop easy to understand teaching materials to rid people of their misconceptions.
Gapminder is an independent Swedish foundation with no political, religious, or economic affiliations.
Test your worldview, we are sure you will learn a lot about the world we live in. You will discover many facts that you didn't know before.
USEFUL LINKS
Visit GapMinder website (explore their studies and take more tests)
Download Misconception Study by Gapminder (suuuper interesting)
Visit GapMinder Tools & Stats (view world data)
We are very happy to share our new 2022 Destination Brochure.
In our destination list we have added Florence, Italy.
DOWNLOAD BROCHURE to discover all our destinations!
We have been waiting for this moment for a long time and now we are so happy to start promoting face to face English Classes!!!
We are delighted to offer 4 weeks of English Course in Cork for the price of 3 weeks! No school booking fee.
Please contact us: [email protected] or contact us via chat 😉
Finally all English language school across Ireland can resume the recruitment of new international students from September 20th.
We are very happy for our industry. Most of our partner schools will continue to provide online classes during the autumn / winter but they will also be able to welcome students who wish to come to Ireland to Study English.
The Department of Justice also confirmed that short term visa will also resume from today 13th September.
Schools have also been asked to encourage vaccine uptake among existing, new and prospective students.
If you wish to book an English Course (go to offer) we are currently running a promotion: Book 4 weeks of English Course and only pay 3 weeks! Please contact us: [email protected]
Now into the second year of the pandemic, it seems like at least some of the changes we have seen around work during this period are here forever, especially around expectations on flexible work and women in leadership. We talk to Enrico Zoppi, CEO and Founder of EazyCity and Marta Ponte, Marketing Manager about these key topics.
EazyCity has been always a proud employer in relation to equal opportunities and empowering women at work. Prior to Covid-19, 20% of the overall workforce were men and 80% women.
Now, after the Pandemic, the company still employs 30% men and 70% women. Leading to an average of ¾ women and ¼ men. Enrico Zoppi, CEO of EazyCity, “We are proud to have so many women in EazyCity and that attention to detail, warmness, strategy, passion, family, positivity and care have been improved and enhanced because of this ratio”.
We are aware of the challenges and we must build our workforce with gender equality in mind. We support women and aim to create more high-trust, inclusive cultures during and after the pandemic.
According to Deloitte’s last report, “Women @ Work: A global outlook”, through the pandemic, women have taken on more responsibilities at home and at work while not receiving adequate support from their employers. These extra demands on women’s time during the pandemic have come at a huge cost, negatively affecting their mental health and decreasing their aspirations for a better professional future.
“It is real and it hurts so much. We need to step up and fight against the negative effect that the Pandemic have had in many women around the world. Supporting each other and giving them flexibility to balance the different aspects of their professional and personal lives with a fair salary” Enrico Zoppi states.
At EazyCity, flexibility is one of the company’s core values since 2004 and more than ever today, has a new meaning. Enrico Zoppi, “We want to encourage our team members to make them real and use “flexibility” in whatever ways they think is the best to help them out. From working from home, free working hours planning, decrease of working hours, a program to come back to the office or how to assess people’s productivity at work. We are proud of what we have achieved so far but we don’t want to stop yet, there’s much to do.”
Similarly, Marta Ponte, Marketing Manager for EazyCity comments: “Companies have an opportunity to reset culture and accelerate expectations and policies around flexible work and gender equality at work”. Marta Ponte, “As we come out of the pandemic, how we choose to work will influence our productivity and performance as society and economy.”
Looking for a career opportunity? Please email us at [email protected] and we will be happy to discuss your application!
