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“I really enjoyed my time co-conducting the Create the Moment workshops and project. Working with female prisoners - all of them with challenges and issues of their own - to help them tell the stories they wanted to tell was an engaging, at times challenging, but ultimately highly positive experience”- Facilitator
This project helped participants to build their literacy through creative journaling, mindfulness, and participant-led discussions among women in prison. It used a mix of different practices to help learners build emotional literacy and self-expression, either through the written word or visually.
The project took place in the Dóchas Centre, Mountjoy female prison. It was split into two parts; an introductory workshop repeated six times and six follow-up workshops on mindfulness and creative writing.
Eight learners attended each introductory workshop, and four participants took part in the follow-up workshops.
Learners engaged in group and individual creative writing and explored the mediums of poetry and the short story.
Mindfulness workshops allowed learners to reach a state of calm, making it easier to engage in creative writing activities.
Working together on storytelling and creative expression worked really well for participants. They improved their literacy skills and began to feel more confident as a result.
A book compiling poetry and prose written by learners will be published soon. It will also feature illustrations and artwork made by learners in their art classes.
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This project was a collaboration between City of Dublin ETB, Fighting Words, and Dóchas Education centre.
For more information about the project, please contact Andrew Connolly, Regional Literacy Coordinator in City of Dublin ETB, at andrew.connolly@aes.cdetb.ie.
The Adult Literacy for Life Collaboration and Innovation Fund
The Collaboration and Innovation Fund supports projects for adults with unmet literacy, numeracy and digital literacy needs and projects that support organisations to be literacy friendly. The closing date for 2024 applications has now passed but keep an eye out for information on our 2025 fund which will be launched in December.
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