Karen Dowling is a 29-yearold mother of two who those involved in the regeneration of the docklands hope will act as a role model for young people now in school.
The majority of her class in the Holy Faith school in the Coombe had dropped out by the time she was sitting her Leaving Certificate. She says it was probably the fact that she was just 17, and had encouragement to do so from her parents, that she stayed to sit the exam and passed.
After graduating, she worked in a range of jobs, from catering to selling tobacco on Henry Street. Always restless and hoping for something better, she went to France at one stage, where she worked as an au pair in Paris. She also went to the US, where she worked in child care.
She always wanted to go to college but she didn't know anyone who had gone to college before, and she didn't know how she could afford it. "But mostly it was a state of mind. I was afraid to hope. I was afraid to look like an eejit."
She attended a self-assertiveness course in the YMCA on Aungier Street and after that was put in contact with the Trinity College Access programme by the Inner City Organisations Network.
Access is a course provided by TCD for people who want to re-enter education. Students do not have to have the Leaving Cert and at the end of the course can apply for a place in university. During the year she heard about a new scholarship programme being offered by the Dublin Docklands Development Authority, applied for it and was successful.
In 1998, Ms Dowling applied for four courses in TCD and, after being assessed, was accepted for all four. She chose law.
"It's a challenge. Where I come from most people think the legal system is not for them, unless they're in a courtroom against their will."
As well as £1,000 per year, which she uses for books, the DDDA provides her with a support system which she can fall back on if she finds the going is getting tough. She also has a practicing solicitor who she can contact if she feels the need to discuss aspects of her studies.
She had one child while doing the access course and another while in TCD. She believes the DDDA is already making an impact on the area she comes from. "It's helping people see what can be done. For everything good that happens there's a ripple effect there that's hard to imagine."
