Transforming our future, one student at a time

We had a great turnout this morning for the launch of the annual Aisling Bursary Educational programme — initiated by the Belfast Media Group and the hardworking West Belfast Partnership Board — which has provided over a third of a million pounds to West Belfast students in the ten years of its existence (this is year 11).

Geraldine McAteer, CEO of the Partnership Board, had some frightening statistics about the number of children from the Shankill who make it to third-level education. Last year, just over 2300 young people from West Belfast went on to college. Of that number, 20, less than one per cent were from the Shankill.

Terence Brannigan, Chair of CBI Northern Ireland, who also spoke at today's launch in the Cultúrlann, said he planned to raise five £1,000 scholarships for the Shankill this year to see if we couldn't improve that figure by 25 per cent. That would be quite a rise! The bursaries will be offered to the parents of primary school children in the Shankill to encourage them to tackle third level education — and no doubt that will raise the expectations of the next generation as well.

As Terence said, education is the greatest way to break out of poverty — poverty in hard financial terms but also from intellectual poverty.

Gerry Adams said the bursaries helped to raise expectations. He has spent a lot of time over the past few years working with schools in the Shankill where deprivation indices — such as the need for speech therapists — are an indictment of us all.

The good news is that Michael McAdam, the entrepreneur behind the Moviehouse pehnomenon has put in the first £2,000 to this year's kitty to fund a scholarship for West Belfast and the first of the five for the Shankill. Good for him.

Pictured at the launch are solicitor Michael Flanigan, John Jones of the Kennedy Centre, Cllr Caoimhín Mac Giolla Mhín and Rory Galway of Bombardier. Also pictured are Clodagh Grimes of Westwood Centre, Dan McGinn of the University of Ulster, Ciarán Mackel of ARD-Ciaran Mackel Architects and Hugh Kennedy, founder of Curley's and Kennedy Centre supremo.