Adult Learning Project
Courses in women’s studies, politics, culture and community, literacies, the arts and community development
The Adult Learning Project is an innovative community project based on the theories of Paulo Freire. It started in 1979 and for many years the project was based in a shop front on the corner of Dalry Road and Downfield Place. Its founders were women and women have always played a role in ALP. The ALP 1989 Freirean co-investigation acknowledged that there were learning challenges:
- How have women contributed to the culture in the past?
- How should they do so in the future?
Women in the project more than rose to the challenge of answering these questions and some example of how they did this follow.
The ALP Scottish History Workshop recognised that women were often just a footnote in history, and formed a women's history group, Scottish Women Past and Present. Veronica Wallace, a wonderful and inspiring feminist, was employed as the group's tutor. In keeping with ALP’s Freirean approach, Veronica encouraged the women to be historians in their own right (the Liberatory Approach).
The group also produced a book, FromMargaret to Mary: A Herstory Walk of the Royal Mile by Rose Brown, and led walking tours of the Royal Mile. Rose became the first tutor of the subsequently formed women's history group, Damn Rebel Bitches (DRB). They took their name from that given to women, derisively, by the Duke of Cumberland during the Jacobite Rebellion. P ublications include Edinburgh Women's Graveyard Trail which maps the graves of influential, but often little known, women.
WORDS Women's Writing Group was formed. Crucial to this group was the provision of childcare, enabling women to have the time to focus on writing. The group published a collection of poetry and prose, Spread the Words, in 1995. Occasional successful funding applications resulted in the group involving inspirational workshop leaders such as Dilys Rose. Some of the women went on to have novels and poetry collections published.
In 1994 Sheila McWhirter became the first part-time women's development worker, forming the ALP Women's Planning Group, open to all women participating in any ALP class. This group organised annual Women's Gaitherings each March (to celebrate International Women's Day) and December, attended by around 150 women. Women shared their findings, sang, danced and read their writing. Writers such as Janice Galloway were supportive and came and read from their work too.
Sheila and the Women’s Planning Group were the catalysts in the formation of a larger venture, ENACT 2000, a women's festival to encourage more women to get involved in cultural and educational activities. Joan Bree, the ALP Administrator, and Rona Brown who has held many roles at ALP including Convenor, gave freely of their time to ENACT (Education, Networking, Action, Culture and Training). It became a separate women's organisation, a partnership between ALP, Women Unlimited (a local women's health project), Engender, St Bride's (Dalry's local community centre), and the Filmhouse.
The first ENACT Festival was a great success, involving around 700 people and with a programme of mainly women’s activities, including workshops, a concert, films, a bazaar, and the ALP Women's Gaithering. Most activities had free childcare, which was key to enabling women to participate. One innovation was the first Hidden Heroines Awards event on International Women's Day. The awards were called The Elsies after Elsie Inglis. ENACT ran very successfully for five years.
These are just a few examples of ALP's major contribution to the development of women in Edinburgh.
Jean Cuthbert
Sources
ALP website:
Engender:
Galloway, Vernon and Reeves, Stan and Somerville, Nancy. ALP since 1990: A flowering of cultural action. In Living Adult Education: Freire in Scotland, Gerri Kirkwood and Colin Kirkwood. 139-169. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers, 2011
Brown, Rona. Interview 2014
Personal experience - Jean Cuthbert was involved in ALP's women's work from 1980–2003
