In July and August of this year Gluaiseacht organised two forest school camps for children living in IPAS centres in the towns of Castlebar and Ballina. Altogether thirty children took part in these outdoor education projects which were run by Leon McAleenan and Laura Britton of Fiáin Forest School and co-ordinated and supported by Mayo County Council’s Local Authority Integration Team (LAIT).
Participants were brought by bus from the accommodation centres to a beautiful patch of rural wilderness in central Mayo where they constructed shelters, made wooden toys and tools and learned about the plants and animals of the forest. Most of the children involved had little previous experience of wild nature but thrived in the safe yet strange and sometimes challenging environment of the camp.
Despite occasional rain, all the children involved engaged whole-heartedly and indicators of success included spontaneous exclamations such as ‘I was scared of caterpillars but they’re actually nice’ ‘I’ve never climbed a tree before’, and ‘I wish I could bring my family here’, .
Gluaiseacht were very proud to bring this project to fruition, combining as it does both our environmental and social justice objectives.
Mayo LAIT’s Keith Downey described the project as follows:
“These camps garnered huge interest from families in the centres … and helped significantly in furthering our aim of integrating families into our community. The children, some of whom are very new to our country, were able to develop a real sense of belonging in their surroundings. Thank you to Gluaiseacht for coming to us with this proposal. We are truly appreciative to be part of such a fruitful programme with a lens on community integration.”
