Class act mother learns a valuable lesson on school
Mum who quit school at 15 praises education programmes
A SINGLE mum who left school at 15 scored two job offers yesterday after wowing audiences with her inspirational life story.
Mum-of-three Jennifer Scully (40) from Smithfield, abandoned education when she was a child to help her mum Teresa after her dad Christopher, a Dublin street cleaner, suffered two strokes.
Her father lost his speech and was left paralysed down one side of his body when she was seven.
Yesterday, she told how returning to college changed her life at the North Inner City Learning Neighbourhood Showcase at the Croke Park Conference Centre.
Scully, who had two brothers and six sisters at home, got a job in a handbag factory in Stoneybatter at 15. Her dad sadly died of cancer five years later.
She said: “There’s a lot of us at home and we all went out to work to help my mother.
“I handed up the majority of my wage to my mum for the housekeeping as we’d a lot on at home.
“I’ve a sister at home registered blind with special needs so my mam had a hell of a lot on her hands.
“After a year the factory manager cottoned onto the fact I was only 15 but by then I was 16 then so he kept me on so I was lucky.”
She continued: “I was always a worker. I always made sure the money was coming in to pay the bills.”
But ten years ago she returned to study at the Women’s Gateway Project in Stoneybatter, where she credits manager Carmel O’brien for changing her life.
The project was one of 25 showcasing courses and education stories from Dublin’s North Inner City yesterday from charities Vision Ireland, Cathal Brugha and Lourdes Youth and Community Centre.
Jennifer revealed: “The kids were young but I walked out with a full major award in level 5 childcare and a level five in community addiction studies.
“The kids were in the creche connected to the building. The services are amazing - Carmel is my idol. Going back to education was a big milestone for me.”
After her mum took sick, Scully took a break but returned to study healthcare and has a couple of modules to go before graduating with a major award.
The single mother hopes to work helping nurses at the Mater or St James’s hospitals.
Scully said if she could turn the clock back, she would have stayed on in school. She explained: “If things were different I definitely would have stayed ineducation but life gets in the way and priorities came first.
“Now my oldest boy is 17, sitting his Leaving and my other son is 16 and doing it next year and my daughter is in college. I always tell them “your education is so important”.’ Far from putting her off, Scully is already planning more courses.
Scully revealed: “I’d love to possibly go back and link it into community addiction studies and youth work and maybe pursue that to degree level hopefully.
“I most definitely want to keep doing it to push my kids to do more so they know anything is possible. They see me and think ‘if my mam can do it, so can we’.”
She added: “I made an impact on someone and was asked to give a talk to young women in prison and a rehab centre.
“I was also offered a supervisor position down on Parnell Street in one of the educational centres so I must have made an impression.”