Adult Learners Week Awards
21 May 2010
Adult Learner’s Week is in full swing and the winners of the London Awards were recognised at a ceremony in Waltham Forest this week. SLLP have sponsored a regional award in the Adult Learners’ Week non-accredited category and the winner is Ann Marie Costigan, a young woman from a traveler community who has overcome some major hurdles to pursue her dreams of improving her literacy skills and career prospects.
Adult Learners' Week is now in full swing throughout the country and after a record number of nominations, the winners of the London Awards have been recognised at a ceremony in Waltham Forest on 18th May.
In the category of non-accredited learning, sponsored by the Skills and Learning for London Partnership, a division of Prospects, this year’s award has gone to Ann Marie Fury for her determination to improve her literacy and employability skills in the face of some extraordinary obstacles.
Anne Marie is now 21 and since she was 17, she has been working as a cleaner with long hours and very little pay.
Last year she met a community tutor through the Surrey Lifelong Learning Partnership who found that her literacy skills were lower than a reception child and that as a result, she was shy, embarrassed and convinced that learning to read and write was an impossible task.
Ann Marie’s challenge was even more acute since she never attended school regularly, comes from a traveller community with no literate role models and where the value placed on education is low.
Since September last year, still working as a cleaner, she has applied herself with such determination that in the last 3 months, she has made the same progress as a child would be expected to make in 3 years of school.
In Ann Marie’s own words,
“I feel that I never really had a chance. When I was at school, I couldn’t really learn because they moved too fast and I was mainly given colouring to do. But now I know how important it is to read and feel sad and stressed when I can’t read things. I have come such a long way and can already see my progress. I feel so proud when I see something on a paper and I can understand it.
“I can do things like word quizzes in magazines and work sheets for my course, and I know that this will help me when I have children. Whenever I am too tired or don’t want to read, I think about this and getting a better job to make me try harder.
“I hope that I can continue to learn so that I can get on a course to learn a skill like hair and beauty or even work with other travellers who want to learn”
