Storying the Life, Love, and Learning of a Six-Week Program That Lasted 30 Years

• In Event: Listening for Methodology

Abstract

This study made visible the transformative impact of Kileely Community Project (KCP), a grass-roots, school-based community education initiative on the narrators living with the challenges of poverty and isolation in a social housing project, in Limerick City, Ireland between 1985 and 2015. Informed by Greene’s perspective framework, Ecological, Social Capital and Hope theory and using Narrative Inquiry tools this study provided the information and community permission to successfully advocate for the continuation of KCP programmes on the closure of the host school (2015) albeit under different organisational structures. The findings honour indigenous leadership, along with the role of researchers to work in coalition to excavate the potential of public education as a force for hope and transformation.

Authors

• Ann Mary Higgins, Mary Immaculate College

• Brighid Golden, Mary Immaculate College