Messages from our Past Members

Adrienne Cassidy

At 15 years of age I joined with a group of other teenagers in Finglas West, all of us looking for something a bit different from the usual youth clubs, scouts or girl-guides. Peace Corps offered us a new recipe for cooking up activities for leisure time, except this time, instead of picking something off the shelf, we were being asked to bake the cake.  A doorway was opened for us into a world that challenged us to look around us and see the issues that were facing us on our own doorstep. Then we were asked ‘What can you do to change it for the better?’

I am older now, very happily married with two boys, aged 11 and 9 years. For the past 17 years I have worked as a Social Worker. Through my involvement with Peace Corps my career path was formulated from early on. I could never have seen myself doing anything else. Peace Corps equipped me with the skills, the experience and the confidence I needed to pursue this career.

Before I go on however, I must say that Peace Corps also taught me skills for life. There were, of course the very practical skills of painting and decorating, catering for large groups of people, organising weekends away and so on. And then there was what I call ‘education for living’, that was woven into the very fabric of Peace Corps. Everything about Peace Corps demanded of you to look, listen, think, analyse, hypothesise and decide. It challenged you to simultaneously be an activist and a diplomat. It forced you to stand up and be counted by whatever contribution you chose to make. The point was your contribution was always welcomed, encouraged and valued. As a young adult wanting to get involved in my community, that was a very special experience.

In practising social work I have drawn so often the skills I learnt in my Peace Corps years, from information gathering to team-building, from facilitation skills to conflict management, from awareness of gender differences to identifying cross-cultural issues.  At present I work with people with intellectual disabilities. My job is to provide support for this client- group in dealing with the everyday situations that face you and me- for example, finding secure employment or looking for a place to live. This job involves planning, networking, evaluating and advocating on behalf of people. Peace Corps introduced me to these skills and have given me plenty of opportunity to put them to good use.

I worked in Rwanda with an Irish aid agency, Concern, from 1995 to 1998. During this time, I was involved in setting up for a fostering programme for children orphaned from the genocide and war in Rwanda. This was an equally fascinating and challenging time for me. A huge chunk of my work here was around training for new social workers in the areas of Fostering and Community Development. When I look back, this was probably the time when I most exploited my Peace Corps learning. The facilitation and training skills that I have mastered over the years I credit mainly to the nurturing and development of these skills that I underwent as a leader and an Assistant Co-ordinator in the Peace Corps. Even in my current work I am often called upon to don the hat of trainer, one that I am most comfortable wearing thanks to Peace Corps.

It would be inappropriate to finish up without some reference to the man responsible for it all, the engine and the engineer of Peace Corps, John Wall. John himself is the blueprint for Peace Corps. His eternal good humour and his inexhaustive creativity epitomises my memories of Peace Corps. Thank you John for all those memories.

I am sad to say that I don’t have a lot of regular contact with Peace Corps friends nowadays. However I often bump into Peace Corps people around the place and I always feel warmly greeted. My brother, on the other hand, married into a neighbouring Peace Corps and lives happily ever after!

 

 

Peace Corps has provided me with so many new and challenging opportunities. I’ve participated in Youth Exchanges to Hungary, Poland and Northern Ireland. I’ve painted, decorated, tamed many a garden, laid carpet, lino, written and produced hundreds of newsletters. But most importantly had lots of fun doing them.  

It only seems like yesterday that I sat nervously waiting for my first Peace Corps meeting to begin. That was 19 years ago but how quickly the time has flown. I joined to produce a Newsletter but stayed for so many other reasons.

Top of that list is friendship. I’ve met many friends, some lasting, others passing but all sharing a common goal, to give their time and talents to help others. It never ceases to amaze me what a group of young people can achieve when they work together.

What was the best moment? What stands out most for me? I’ve mentioned how important friendship was, but it’s the staying power of Peace Corps that will remain with me forever. Day after day, year after year, Peace Corps encourages young people to give something back to their community. Some groups fall- only to be replaced by others- and now, with the Localise Programme up and running, the future of Peace Corps is in safe hands.

I may not be as involved now as much as I used to be. I’m a little older- and we have extra responsibilities but I continue to play my part, to provide young members with the same opportunities that I had. I now run Drama and Newsletter workshops for local Corps. My latest challenge is to bring Peace Corps to the Web. It’s my way of giving a little something back.

I suppose the greatest compliment I can give to Peace Corps is that I hope someday my son might follow in his Dad’s footsteps.

 

It is with great pleasure that I write this article. I believe that without the influence and experience of Peace Corps in my teenage life I would not be where I am today- in either my professional career as Principal Medical Social Worker, in Our Lady’s Hospice or in my personal life- married to my husband, Tommy Moris, who is a former member of Peace Corps (also a Social Worker)!

One Sunday at 12.00 noon folk Mass in Ballyfermot a young curate (Fr. John Wall) asked teenagers present, to volunteer to collect money with him, for a sponsored 50 mile tandern cycle to Mullingar! The money raised, was to put a roof on a local youth club, called the O.L.V. Although I was not a “youth club type” person, I volunteered.

At the “thank you” party afterwards, I met a great group of teenagers. They had found a formula of balancing fun, and giving something back to their community. This was more like what I wanted to join! Two lads there, John Maguire and Earnon Kerins, told me that they were members of the Communications Unit of the “Peace Corps”. Once they found out I could type, I was in! I decided to join and my life changed forever!

Having left school at 15 years, I had no idea of what career I wanted. Doing voluntary work alongside Social Workers for many years in Ballyfermot Peace Corps enabled me to discover that I had a talent for working with people. At the age of 25 years, I went to college in Cork, as a mature student to study for a career in Social Work. I got credits for all those years voluntary work, I qualified in 1983.

In 1990 I became the first Social Worker to be employed in a Hospice in Ireland. The many years of working with families struggling to make meaning in their lives of poverty (not only financial, but emotional and the social poverty of isolation) prepared me for assisting people to find meaning in their life, at its very end. I feel so grateful to the early Peace Corps membership. Many more of them have since joined other caring professions and gone on to become Social Workers, Occupational Therapists, Nurses and some have joined religious communities. Many had their first taste of social care, through their work in Peace Corps Ballyfermot.

Ann Keating, now Principal Medical Social Worker with Our Lady’s Hospice in Harolds Cross, has recently written a useful book designed to help young children cope with the trauma of death in the family. She lives in Leixlip, Co Kildare with her husband Tommy and their daughters Sarah and Emma. Ann has happy memories of the early days of Peace Corps in Ballyfermot.