Course graduates on brink of dream careers

CAREERS in theatre, administration, retail and other services are on the horizon for the first graduates of a groundbreaking university course.

The first 19 people to complete the Certificate in Contemporary Living celebrated receiving their scrolls at Trinity College Dublin yesterday. It ran over two years at the college’s National Institute for Intellectual Disabilities, teaching students academic, personal and career skills.

Jan Mahon, 28, from Bray, Co Wicklow has pursued her dream of a stage career, with an appearance in last autumn’s Dublin Theatre Festival.

“I had a small part in The Idiots at the Project Arts Centre,” she said.

Some of the independent living skills she learned on the course helped her with moving into her own apartment in Bray.

“I’m also working two days a week at Starbucks in town, which came from doing my work experience there as part of college. She is hoping to travel on the Asgard training ship and get involved in various other activities, which she said would not be possible without her participation in the Trinity course.

Her classmate Ross O’Neill, 25, from Clondalkin, has also secured employment, helping run the office at Down

Syndrome Ireland in Dublin: “It’s pretty hard work but I’ll keep going. I’d like to be paying my own way and have my own place and my own car.”

He and others on the course have set up an anti-bullying service where people can come to meetings or relate their experiences over the phone or by e-mail. The initiative was developed from a course module which led Ross to help out on research on the topic at Trinity.

Ross says that other people should get involved in similar courses because of the things it has opened up for him and his fellow graduates.

“They should go out and fulfil their dreams and hopefully they will get their own jobs or study something they want,” he said.

Many other students have gone into work or studying in areas including computers and media courses.

Another 25 students started the second certificate course last October and institute director Patricia O’Brien said it is hoped that other colleges can come up with similar initiatives.

Fergus Finlay, a board member of the NIID and chief executive of children’s charity Barnardos, said the course has enormous potential to revolutionise the way people with intellectual disabilities are treated.

“It should also expand the opportunities available to them, which are very limited after the age of 18 apart from sheltered workshops or residential programmes,” said Mr Finlay.