The North Leitrim Women’s Centre is committed to ensuring that all women of North Leitrim are being helped to combat the trap of poverty and exclusion. However, the group does accept the difficulties there are in targeting the women most in need in these rural environments and assisting them in getting out of the poverty trap.
A number of barriers presently exist in the North Leitrim and surrounding areas that greatly hinder women from really participating in any kind of training and education, in the sourcing and accessing of supports that may potentially lead them out of the home or which would facilitate them in fully participating within their own communities in any real or meaningful way.
The North Leitrim Women’s Centre feels that the following are the most hindering of these barriers:
- Lack of confidence and self esteem
- Lack of education due to early drop out, personal circumstances and proximity to the border area where it has been recognised that women close to these areas have low levels of educational attainment
- Lack of opportunity as a result of staying at home to rear children/care for relatives or purely socio-economic circumstances especially within this target area
- Lack of childcare, eldercare or other personal supports
Women with a Disibility
The NLWC promotes and works to the Social Models of Disability and strives to ensure that all barrier created by the communities that disabled women live within are eliminated where possible, in order to assist and enhance participation. The NLWC is fully accessible, however, the centre does recognise and appreciate that there are many more additions / changes that are required if disabled women are to have an equal opportunity at participating in NLWC activities. Resources and funding for these resource are an ongoing issue for the centre, as indeed this is for all community groups and centres everywhere. The centre maintains close contact with the Leitrim Association for People with Disabilities in order to ensure that disabled women are kept up to date with the centre’s activities. Members of the WILL group, Women Independently Living in Leitrim, use the centre regularly and bring back information from it to the wider group.
