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Bishopstown
Travellers

December, 2002

Travellers Education Development

Historical Development

1993 Ms Sandra Brett began Community Education in the four halting sites within the City of Cork. She
She put on a variety of courses in meeting identifiable needs, facilitating an identification of interests talents & skills, encouraging a growing participation.

1997 Mary O’Sullivan, appointed Literacy Organiser to the Travellers Literacy Scheme

First Literacy Organiser in Ireland, from the travelling community, contributing to the growth and development of the educational needs of Travellers.

The Co-ordinators of the Community Education Groups Sr.Mairead, Maria Hegerty, Sr.Anne, Gertrude, and a special mention to Sr.Philippa who’s pioneering work at St.Catherines inspired many in this great task.

The increasing number of Traveller Learners giving example and leadership. This year the numbers have risen to 9 male and 106 Female a total of 115 reflects the growing awareness of the importance of education within the Travelling community

     The increasing number of Traveller Tutors, giving example and     leadership.

 The Teachers/Tutors for their professionalism, expertise and staying power recognising and acknowledging the major ongoing social / educational revolution in which they worked.

 St.Vincent de Paul leading and innovating in partnership with the City of Cork VEC.

 Mary’s On the Hill Primary School Home School/Community Links service thanks to Clare Lovett.

The Members of the newly formed Cork Travellers Adult Education Council, whose task into the future/going forward is enormous, challenging and exciting.

The flexible approach adopted by our scheme facilitates Travellers lifestyles and is one of the reasons for the increase in the numbers.

The service is delivered in a comprehensive and innovative way.

 Range of Services

1.      One to one

2.      Group literacy and Community Education

3.      Family literacy

FETAC Foundation Certification

Communications

Mathematics

Computers

Personal /interpersonal Skills

Personal effectiveness.

Peer Tutoring / Mentoring

The most important development this year has been the increase in numbers from the community accessing specialised training from both NALA and the Page mentoring projects.

 Three new literacy volunteers trained with NALA

And there are three others presently training with the Page mentoring project.

Multi–Agency Approach

Knocknaheeny Innovatory Literacy & Community Education Project

1.      The Saint Mary’s On the Hill Primary School Home School/Community Links service,

2.      The Society of Saint Vincent de Paul and ourselves the Traveller Literacy Scheme.

Mahon Men’s Education Project

1.      The Mahon Community Action Enterprise

2.      FAS

3.      The VEC Literacy programme.

4.      The Local Employment service and

5.      The Traveller Health Unit.

Tutors

As the literacy programmes developed it was important to encourage as many of the Travelling community as possible to train as tutors.

This will ensure the continuation of the programme, as the travelling community will develop a sense of ownership of the process.

The flexibility of service and the professionalism of our tutors both paid and voluntary are the key to the success of this project. 

We now have as many as twenty tutors from all sections of society working together delivering the programmes in all areas of the city.  

All of our tutors are trained by National Adult Literacy Agency [NALA] However as they are working with people from a different ethnic /culture backgrounds they can experiences difficulty from time to time.

Any difficulties they are encountering are worked trough by the organiser and the Care and advocacy worker.

It is very important that all of our tutors voluntary and paid feel supported and valued for the work they do.

Students

The explosion of numbers attending Saint Johns College indicates that the travelling communities’ interest in education is continuing to develop. 

The students who attend our groups have experienced a lot of discrimination and lack of opportunity in their educational journey so far.

To help overcome many of the initial problems of accessing educational opportunities the students have access to the care and advocacy worker whose role it to support the student. This process takes place both on at an individual level and by using group process. facilitating the student’s educational needs by referring them to programmes that are most relevant to their needs. 

This role has evolved with the developments that are ongoing.

Client Profile

 The amount of travellers availing of the service increased last year.

 This service is available to all travellers and the increase in number reflects the growing awareness of the importance of education within the Travelling community.

Since the beginning of the new literacy project the numbers have increase every year.

 The flexible approach adopted by our scheme facilitates Travellers lifestyles and is one of the reasons for the increase in the numbers.

Services

To facilitate the inclusion of as many members of the Travelling community as possible the literacy project delivers its service in a comprehensive and innovative way.

 The service is still developing and will continue to develop in areas where the uptake is very slow.

The engagement with members of the Travelling community from the North side of the city needs special attention.

Range of services

One to one

Group literacy

Family literacy

FETAC Foundation certification in the following areas

Communications

Mathematics

Computers

Personal /interpersonal Skills

Personal  effectiveness.

 Peer Tutoring / Mentoring

The most important development this year has been the increase in numbers from the community accessing specialised training from both NALA and the Page mentoring projects.

Three new literacy volunteers trained with NALA

and there are three others presently training with the Page mentoring project.

Timing of service on going through out the year

We offer a range of services including groups in following areas

Innovatory Projects

The project has come across many difficulties in the last 3 years in trying to set up a Literacy project in the North Side of the city.

There are many Traveller Families accommodated in this area, yet as can be seen from our records we are still having difficulty trying to engage them in educational projects.

Knocknaheeny halting site has a large transient population and as a result of this we have been unsuccessful in our attempts to establish a literacy project to cater for the needs of these Travellers.

 Indeed the fact that only one member from this community ever attended St Johns Central College has caused us great concern.

 What we required was collaborative approaches between different agencies working with the same client base.

We set in place intensive negotiations between

3.      The Saint Mary’s On the Hill Primary School Home School/Community Links service,

4.      The Society of Saint Vincent de Paul and ourselves the Traveller Literacy Scheme.

This Aim was to set in place a group were travellers could explore their own needs with regard to education.

The school provided a space where the women could meet and they also allowed us full use of the crèche facilities. 

This Project has the support of the Society of Saint Vincent De Paul who has agreed to fund the cost of setting in place a developmental model of community education.

The pilot project ran from October to Dec 2001

The society paid the cost of the

1.      Speakers/ Tutors

2.      The extra cost of child care workers

3.      The cost of all the extra resource materials

4.      The incentive bonus to the parents that participated. This bonus was paid at the end of the project and underpinned the success of this project.

This community education approach will enable the women from the halting /roadside to access programmes that are relevant to their lifestyle. It is hoped that this engagement will lead to the clients progressing to any of the other projects set up to meet the literacy needs of the Travelling Community

As the project developed the women began to engage in the classes that focused on literacy through women’s health etc.

The women were anxious to participate in another course and the Society agrees to fund the second phase of this project.  This year’s project is focusing on Literacy through Cookery. 

Mahon Men’s Education Project

The setting in place of the Men’s Education Project in the Mahon area has been the most successful innovative project that was undertaken last year. 

The organisers of the Literacy project initiated this project.

Over many years the men from the Travelling community have declined to engage in any educational courses or services. 

There was a gap in service provision around travelling men wishing to access educational opportunities.

There was a growing need to develop a literacy project in the Mahon area that would facilitate the men from the Travelling community.

Negotiating with the local Community Employment scheme in Mahon brought this about.

They agreed to employ a travelling man from the local community to undertake a study of needs within the local Traveller community.

When the needs were assessed the need to focus on development /community approach became apparent new ways of working needed to be developed.

To move this project forward needed imagination and creativity. 

The literacy organisers developed a collaborative approach by working with the Mahon Community Action Enterprise, FAS and the VEC literacy programme. The Local employment service and the Traveller Health Unit.

The Community project board of management gave full backing to this innovated approach and they applied to FAS to employ a local travelling man whose role it is was to help develop the programme.

The literacy project employed a male tutor who has extensive training and experience in community education /development, especially in relation to traveller education.

 In his role he is responsible for the delivery of the service on the ground and to support the development of both the groups and the traveller trainee. The feed back from the men is that it is proving successful, as it is traveller led and meets the needs of the men at a basic level.  This project is going from strength to strength and it is envisaged that it will lead to the first Travelling man training to become a literacy tutor

The most important consideration for the project will be the need to cement it into the local community.

This will ensure that it become a player in the field when it come to accessing additional funding as it continues to grows.

 The Minister of Health has launched the Mahon Men’s Education, Health Development Group first report Michael Martin TD in April 2002.

 Support Services 

Tutors

As the literacy programmes developed it was important to encourage as many of the Travelling community as possible to train as tutors.

This will ensure the continuation of the programme, as the travelling community will develop a sense of ownership of the process.

The flexibility of service and the professionalism of our tutors both paid and voluntary are the key to the success of this project. 

We now have as many as twenty tutors from all sections of society working together delivering the programmes in all areas of the city.  

All of our tutors are trained by NALA. However as they are working with people from a different ethnic /culture backgrounds they can experiences difficulty from time to time.

Any difficulties they are encountering are worked trough by the organiser and the Care and advocacy worker.

It is very important that all of our tutors voluntary and paid feel supported and valued for the work they do.

Students

The explosion of numbers attending Saint Johns College indicates that the travelling communities’ interest in education is continuing to develop.  The students who attend our groups have experienced a lot of discrimination and lack of opportunity in their educational journey so far.

To help overcome many of the initial problems of accessing educational opportunities the students have access to the care and advocacy worker whose role it to support the student.

This process takes place both on at an individual level and by using group process.

This workers brief is to facilitate the student’s educational needs by referring them to programmes that are most relevant to their needs. 

This role has evolved with the developments that are ongoing.

Networking

Development of service

 Expansion of the service will be focusing on developmental approaches with the other agencies working in the area of education and social exclusion.

This year we will be focusing our attention on the north side of the city where the up take of our service needs to be increased.

 Service Delivery

It is hoped that we can maintain the service that is currently on offer.  This may prove difficult as everything depends on the funding we receive The funding so far has been adequate but it needs to be stated that there is no guarantee of this funding and that too develop this work any further may in fact be detrimental to the overall project?

There is s need to look at ring fencing funding for projects like this one as we may fail to continue to receive adequate funding if the government starts to cut backs

Travellers have had no tradition or history of accessing 2^nd or 3^rd level education and they are beginning to see this project as an essential part of their educational journey

Access Funding

This funding has been the main reason for the phenomenal success of the Peer tutoring Programme project.

What this means is that travellers are availing of a positive form of discrimination that has enabled them to over come some of the barriers that prevented them from accessing opportunities in the past.  

However this year we will need an increase in this part of the budget to facilitate the new students.

Progression

The literacy project that has evolved has in built progression routes as outlined in previous pages.

Our clients can access our services and has already occurred they can go on to develop their skills to become tutors both voluntary and paid.

They also have the opportunity to progress educationally on to level one programmes.

However this is delivered outside the remit of the Literacy service.

Trainers

Voluntary Tutors

Recruitment of trainees is ongoing trough out the year. 

Last year we trained twelve new tutors three of whom were members of the Travelling community.

The new Training for this year will commence in April and we have a waiting list of volunteers looking for training.

 Paid Tutors

Recruitment of trained Community Tutors and Secondary school Teachers play an important part in the development of our FETAC foundation courses.

To develop the peer-modelling course it is important to access to the very best of teachers and Tutors and we are very fortunate in having the committed staff that we have at present. 

Training

 Training is compulsory for all our tutors the voluntary tutors go through NALA Training and all tutors access in service training each year.

Organisers Training

 The two organisers are presently undertaking The National Certificate in Humanities (Community Education/ Development) in the Cork Inistute of Technology.

This training has been undertaking at the organiser’s own expense and support needs to build in by facilitating paid study leave.

Provisions for Evaluation of Service

This year structures have been set in place to evaluate all the services of the literacy scheme. An outside evaluator facilitated this training/evaluation.

This yearly evaluation will become an integral part of the training needs of the overall project. This will ensure the high quality and develop a model of good practice.

Signed: Sandra Brett  & Mary O Sullivan                                                        

Monday, 18 March 2002

Centre City  Tuckey Street

Brocklesby Street Blackpool

Total students   Male      11            Female   32

We are now working in several areas of the city including

Blackpool  “Family Literacy” 6 students

One to one literacy.