The shanty is a picturesque old hunting lodge tucked away on a meandering country lane off the main road to Brittas, Co Dublin. There are sheep and donkeys in the surrounding fields, and this tranquil pastoral setting seems light years removed from the heavy traffic and sprawling urban development of nearby west Tallaght.

Behind the lodge is what used to be a four-car garage. But for most of the past 12 years it has been a centre of learning and a haven of peace for over 2,500 adults from the west Tallaght area who have come to the Shanty to pick up the threads of their education.

The majority of those who come are unemployed and most have left school at 14 or 15 years of age. The roar of the Celtic Tiger means nothing to them; those outsiders who assume that developments such as the CityWest business park have been beneficial for the area are firmly disabused of this notion by the Shanty's co-founder and director, Dr Ann Louise Gilligan.

"Developments like CityWest have little relevance to the people of west Tallaght in concrete terms," she says. "There are only a few jobs going there that are suitable for people from the area and those that are available are low paid. "I become passionately angry at the constant adulation of material success that is at the root of this so-called `Celtic Tiger'. It is a scenario in which no profit is high enough and where companies are not only greedy but also guilty of exhausting their employees by expecting them to constantly work 12-hour days. This leaves them no time for family life and too tired to put anything back into their communities.

"I have stood in front of executives from these successful companies looking for financial support to help us carry on our work at the Shanty, and I've been told that because the company only made x million profit last year they couldn't possibly give us anything.

"By corporate standards our needs are very modest, but the whole social concept of sharing if you have more than you need has almost completely fallen by the wayside in today's world. Now you have to tell people what's in it for them if you want to get their support. "For example, instead of contributing because of a feeling of social responsibility, people are helping because they are told that they will benefit if improvements to educational standards or living conditions lead to a reduction in the anti-social behaviour that affects them such as joyriding or theft. "Irish people need to develop a new social conscience. The question is: who is going to educate them to it?" Gilligan asks.

The shanty began as a privately funded venture; cofounders Gilligan and Dr Katherine Zappone spent a long time looking for the right place in which to set up. Both believe unequivocally that education is the key to the eradication of poverty, and they chose to put their primary focus on women - because they believe women who bear the heaviest burden of poverty.

"We were looking for a suitable property in a location close to an area of disadvantage. This took us about two years," says Gilligan. "We didn't get any funding to start and our aim from the beginning was to involve local women in the project and to develop their leadership qualities. In time, therefore, a management team of 12 has evolved which has developed from the bottom up. Our courses are free but we ask participants for a small contribution."

The Shanty is committed to what Gilligan describes as "a holistic approach to education". By this she means that those who come to Shanty courses get more than book learning.

"We have tried to make the building welcoming and comfortable and we take a personal interest in everyone who comes here," says Anne Genockey, who started as a Shanty student and has since become the centre's full-time administrator. "For those who come from difficult home situations it is very important for them to have this place and this support. "We ask people to make a commitment to come to their course and if they don't show up for a day or two we will get in touch with them to see if there is something wrong and if we can help."

Students attending courses at The Shanty itself are brought there by minibus, while the centre has also rented rooms wherever it can in west Tallaght to run its courses on a wide range of topics, from bookkeeping and computers to community leadership, personal development, cookery and creative writing.

Childcare facilities are provided and, while the courses have been mainly attended by women, men are by no means excluded. Most of the money needed to run the project has been generated by ongoing fundraising activities with some corporate support.

"What has amazed us over the years is just how creative and entrepreneurial people become once they become empowered by learning and develop a sense of confidence in themselves and a belief in their self worth, " says Gilligan. "Being caught in a situation of poverty isolates people. They have to struggle so hard just to make ends meet that their world narrows and often closes in around them. By getting them out of the situation even briefly they begin to blossom."

Gilligan's "day job" is as a lecturer in the philosophy of education at St Patrick's Training College, Drumcondra Dublin. "We have always taken the academic content of courses very seriously," she says. "Our aim is to give people the best of teaching and we bring in specialists to teach our courses.

"We have close connections with Maynooth and offer a joint course in community development and leadership. We have just 25 places on this course and recently we had over 75 applicants. We give local people priority for places on all of our courses."

Since its inception The Shanty has provided learning opportunities for more than 2,500 people. With demand growing and space tight, Gilligan says that the team had become acutely aware that the time had come to move the project on. Next year will see the culmination of this movement when An Cosan, a purpose-built learning, leadership and enterprise centre will be opened in Jobstown. Dublin Corporation has provided the site and the Government has given £500,000 towards the project. The remainder (roughly the same again) has to be raised locally.

"For us it's the fulfilment of a dream which began with classes in the front room of our house 12 years ago," says Gilligan. "An Cosan will have a board of 21, including seven local people, who will hold the organisation in trust for the community. We believe that An Cosan is a very clear statement of commitment by the people of west Tallaght to education, training and childcare within the community. "We still need a lot of money to make it happen, but we're getting there."

Contact

The Shanty Educational Project, Brittas, Co Dublin (tel: (01) 458 2194)