Learning goes both ways at Cork's Welcome English Language Centre

From tea-breaks and chats to jobs, weddings and christenings — the language centre has become a social hub for the students and the tutors

Ann Bracken, volunteer tutor with students Karen, from Brazil; Nino from Georgia and Lima, from Afghanistan at the welcome mural at Welcome English Lanuage Centre. Picture: Larry Cummins

At Cork’s Welcome English Language Centre, manager Angela Murphy knows every student’s name — all 150 of them, comprising 35 nationalities.  The biggest grouping is from Afghanistan followed by Ukraine, while African and South American countries are also well represented.

Murphy, who has worked here since 2005, recalls hearing that “for many asylum-seekers, over many months, all they are is ‘you’ — they’re not called by their name”.