02/05/2026
Yesterday marked the end of a deeply meaningful chapter, completing my postgraduate journey in Teaching & Learning in Community Development at Maynooth University.
Situated in the building beside this on campus, I often paused at the Freedom sculpture created by the renowned Polish-Irish artist Alexandra Wejchert. There’s something powerful about it.
A figure in motion, suspended between struggle and release. It felt like a mirror at times: the tension between uncertainty and growth, between who you were and who you are becoming. Freedom, not as something handed to you, but something shaped through learning, questioning, and community.
This experience has been more than academic. It has been a privilege. One I don’t take lightly. The opportunity to access education, to have my voice heard, to critically engage with the world and imagine change, these are freedoms built on the resilience and courage of those who came before us. Their legacy sits quietly in lecture halls, in conversations, in the confidence to speak.
Community development reminds us that learning is never just personal and always political.
It ripples outward.
It lives in the spaces we create for others, in the work we do alongside people, not for them, and in the belief that knowledge can be a tool for justice.
Grateful for the people, the challenges, the growth, and the moments that reshaped me.
Grateful for my Community of Practice in SETU who paved the foundations for this leap of faith...
Here’s to carrying that sense of purpose forward and to the ongoing work of building something freer, together.
