Wow, what a journey.  I don’t know where to begin.  This has been such an amazing journey.  First of all I attended two six hour workshops on Dev. Ed. One was with a group of people from across the campus.  It was nice to work with a cross discipline group and I am proud of the work we did to create Friends of Refugees.  But even more fascinating and something I am so grateful for, is the work same six weeks of Dev Ed but this time with the group of people from different disability services in Cork.  I am so glad I volunteered and I would recommend it to anyone organising any course at UCC – include people with diverse abilities – you will learn so much more!

I enjoyed learning about issues like sustainable development, refugees, community radio in Kenya and how it helps small communities, disability rights around the world, talking to the group in India, even global trade!  It never occured to me but people in wheelchairs think so much about safety in a way I don’t.  When we did the activity about what we would take with us if we had to flee our country, some of our group said ‘guns’ (which is a bit worrying I know but it tells us about security in a way I hadn’t thought of) and there was a lot of discussion about policy/guards.  This was just one example of how we saw the world with a different lens..and learned too about the sheer numbers of people with disabilities who are forced out of their countries each year.

It was a much more interesting way of learning.  It feld much more like the real world and I asked myself too…why have we just got people like ourselves (3rd level students) in class…society is made up of all sorts of people..

and then we made our own radio shows!  I just learnt so much.

sorry doing exams just now and can’t get into all the detail but I will be back!

thanks to everyone and well done on the launch of the Moving on site!  I enjoyed the launch at the City Hall so much.  Well done especially to Matt and Val.