WATCH Gateway to Education Limerick addresses economic and social barriers to education

Gateway to Education Limerick – Pictured above is Manager Paul Goodwin and CEO & Founder Suzanne Roche. Picture: Richard Lynch/ilovelimerick

Gateway to Education Limerick works to relieve financial pressures on families throughout each school term by providing second hand school books and uniforms

Gateway to Education Limerick is a non-profit, social enterprise founded in Limerick in April 2012 to address economic and social barriers to education. At the time, founder Suzanne Roche was raising her own children and noticed the high costs of participating with the education system.

Suzanne said, “I decided to try out appealing for donations of school books and uniforms to redistribute in the community to those who needed them. My pop-up markets were a success and had huge interest. That led me to start the charity and go on to open a shop and run many projects over the years.”

Gateway to Education works to relieve financial pressures on families throughout each school term by providing second hand school books and uniforms. Their work connects parents and families to resources that will ensure full participation in the school system and community and offers support to families, primary school children, and college school leavers who are disadvantaged and economically excluded.

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Primarily those who are below a certain financial threshold, are struggling at school, or need work experience to gain employment. They provide educational support not otherwise available to primary and secondary students in at-risk families.

They offer a mentor-ship programme to primary school children supported by the volunteers from the University of Limerick at our Castletroy venue. This offers one to one support to college school leavers who want to enhance their job opportunities, with the help of retired professionals.

Suzanne suffered several major setbacks in the last decade including surviving breast cancer and tragedy struck for Suzanne at the end of 2013 when she lost her home to a fire on Christmas Eve. The fire was suspected to have been caused by an electrical fault in the back bedroom where the couple’s four children had been due to sleep that night for their family tradition. It was during this hard time for Suzanne that the community of Limerick gathered to give back to this generous woman by donating the essentials they would need to refit their house after the devastating fire.

Despite all the hardships Suzanne has remained passionate about developing her project saying, “Working within the charity sector is not an easy task, it takes dedication, leadership,  hard work, and luck. You need a lot of support to manage a project of its size while depending on donations and fundraising to keep it afloat. Leaving the business part aside, the  reason why you do what you do is of course to help those who need a helping hand and offer an alternative to those in need such as our cost reduction on schoolbooks, homework club support, and in-house training to provide better work opportunities.”

To date they have reach over 9000 families who reduced the cost of sending their children to school. They had almost 100 children both primary and secondary supported on an ongoing basis academically and are now one of the main providers of services to parents, children and young adults who live in Limerick. They primarily operate at two of our venues, implementing a cost reduction model and their reach is largely based in the Munster region.

Manager Paul Goodwin said, “We provide a range of services to our local community to help them reach their full potential including recycled school essentials at a nominal fee. Our shop at 9 Wickham Street, Limerick stocks great bargains to be got on clothing, shoes, bric-a-brac and all monies raised goes back into the charity.

The charity also focuses on sustainability through reusing and recycling paper and clothing waste. We ship out-of-date school books to Africa and Asia. This reduces the waste caused by frequently republished school books which leave older editions unusable in Ireland and it also provides educational resources to communities in need.”

They also run an ongoing initiative they call their “Go Do it” project. It focuses on adult education and empowering those who come through the project to learn new skills, grow in confidence and gain workplace experience. Participants of the project are often those returning to employment, people who have been finding it difficult to find stable work and those with intellectual disabilities.

Paul adds, “It could be someone unemployed, with an injury or intellectual disability and has to start over getting into the workplace. We have worked with transition year students, students from abroad or someone who is purely interested in the charity and is compelled to help.”

Suzanne adds, “It’s very much tailored to the individual and not centred around what they can give us, but how we can help them. We want to them to prosper in terms of their self-esteem and self-confidence. We are the first port of call for people with disabilities.”

Volunteer Marie Ryan commented, “I have been working at Gateway to Education Limerick for over 4 years. I sort out the clothes and make sure they are clean and tidy. I love it and it’s the best thing that has ever happened to me. Just being here and meeting everyone has brought so much joy to my life.”

Suzanne concludes, “I would love to see our model replicated all over the country as it would benefit so many people. After over a decade I have proved myself and so has the project.”

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About Social Enterprise Limerick

Learning Hub Limerick is a member of Social Enterprise Limerick, a practitioners’ network of Social Enterprises in Limerick City. The overall objective of Social Enterprise Limerick is to provide a local platform for social enterprises to meet, network, share their experiences and learn from each other. The network encourages collaboration and the sharing of resources to help members to advance their community, social and/or environmental goals and is involved in a range of training, development and promotional activities.

In 2022, Social Enterprise Limerick was approved for funding under the ARISE programme, which is a Dormant Accounts funded initiative for the promotion of Social Enterprise. The ARISE funding was utilised to develop a range of promotional materials for network members and to highlight the activities of the SEL network, with a particular focus on the development of digital media/video content.

Social Enterprise Limerick was initiated by Paul Partnership under the Social Inclusion and Community Activation Programme (known as SICAP). SICAP provides social inclusion support to individuals and community organisations and is co-funded by the Government of Ireland through the Department of Rural and Community Development and the European Union.

For more information on the SEL ARISE project contact Michael Gleeson, Social Enterprise Officer at PAUL Partnership or visit www.socialenterpriselimerick.ie #SocialEnterpriseLimerick