Shine A Light

The group behind the ‘Shine A Light’ project conducted interviews with several volunteers, from various homeless charities and outreach services. The purpose of the interviews is to increase awareness of the work undertaken by these volunteers in homeless outreach services and to highlight the benefits of the work they do – not just for people availing of the services but for the volunteers themselves. The main output from the project is the creation of a video, comprised of the interviews conducted with individuals volunteering in Limerick.

The intention of the project is to broaden our understanding of what homelessness is, how it is manifested and how it is experienced. Research for the project showed the Covid-19 pandemic had a deep impact on homeless outreach services in Ireland, restricting the work they could do. Homeless figures in Limerick increased 10% between 2019 – 2022, with Limerick only second to Dublin in homeless figures at the time of production (May 2022). The aim of the video is to enable volunteers to share their experiences, giving some insight into the work they do, how they benefit from it and why others might get involved.

• Novas Limerick • Help the Homeless Limerick

The team measure the success of the project by doing headcounts at their events and via personal testimonials from those at these events. The project has been evaluated by an international external panel of community-based researchers and academics drawn from the UNESCO sponsored 'Knowledge for Change' (K4C) global consortium.

This module comprises workshop-based project management training delivered in CWELL classes with practical experiential learning, applied in a community- based project, designed to address an identified need. Module delivery comprises a series of practical exercises, designed to support knowledge of, and capacity building for project management. Students taking this module will be expected to design and deliver a community- based project to address an identified need.

The aims of this project are three-fold. First, to draw attention to the issue of homelessness in Limerick. Second, to shine a light on the work of volunteers in this field and the important, largely invisible work that they do. Third, to augment and support existing community assets and expertise. The Shine a Light CWELL team hope that by providing this video resource, the path to homelessness will be better understood by and that more people will be encouraged to support local initiatives by getting involved in volunteer work.

The Shine a Light CWELL team will work in collaboration with: • Novas, Limerick • Help the Homeless, Limerick • University of Limerick Community Engagement Facilitator, CWELL. • Digital Media and Communications Officer, UL Engage

There will be two assessments points to this module, each worth 50% of your final mark. The first assessment will comprise a site visit to your project by a panel of CWELL assessors. The second assessment will comprise the creation of a Project Portfolio detailing the project’s design and implementation and your participation in it. Guidelines concerning the creation of portfolios are available from the module’s Sulis site.