The university of life
DON O’Leary is sitting at a wooden table with the city spread out behind him. “It’s very easy to generalise about kids who leave school early, but the truth is, early school leavers are out for a huge variety of reasons. You can’t say they’re all from one section of society. All we can say for certain is that formal education isn’t working for them.”
We are in the kitchen of the Cork Life Centre, where O’Leary, a well-known community activist and sometime local politician, has been the director for six years. The kitchen, a bright airy room with a magnificent view of Cork city, is where the young people who use the centre, and the volunteer staff who teach them, cook and eat together every day. “This is the life and soul of the place,” says O’Leary. “This is where we build an open atmosphere. The kids who use this centre have to see it as somewhere they feel safe.”
