Waterford Women's Centre

Waterford Women’s Centre is a women's community education project and has since 1995 worked with women experiencing social, economic, educational and cultural barriers.  Our work has a gender equality, anti-poverty, and social inclusion focus and we work at many levels to analyse and remove barriers to participation for women.   We provide a space for the voices of those excluded to be heard and build capacity in order to create and participate in a more equal society. The Women’s Centre is situated in Manor Street, a busy thoroughfare close to the centre of Waterford city and occupies three terraced houses from 74 -76.  It also has a 25 place purpose built Childcare Centre which supports the work. The Women’s Centre provides community development responses to the identified needs, through outreach and engagement, using community education/community development principles, practices and methodologies.   Ongoing consultation and evaluation with the participants directs the design and development of programmes.   Non competitive collective methodologies are used to build confidence and develop a positive learning culture.  The Centre provides an alternative development route that is more accessible to the women we work with.  The Women’s Centre has developed innovative outreach strategies in order to engage women experiencing multiple forms of exclusion and isolation: women attending the Centre outreach and bring in other women, we work in partnership with the other community organisations to ensure seamless referrals, we remove barriers to participation e.g. onsite childcare.  We work closely with state agencies in the area to ensure correct referrals are made.  The women we work with encompass many target groups and include women who are: without formal education qualifications, short term unemployed, long term unemployed, lone parents, travellers, older women, asylum seekers, refugees, members of low income families and members of new communities.