Bonnie Soroke
Leis Project  Development Worker
Queen’s University Belfast, Institute of Lifelong Learning, University Road
Belfast, BT7 1NN
Tel :  +44 (0) 1 28 9097 2562
Email :  b.soroke@qub.ac.uk

As an educator, I have worked in the early childhood education field, taught English as a second language, and worked as a literacy tutor and a consultant within adult literacy research. I am a mother of a teen-aged son (my computer mentor), writer of a recently-completed masters thesis (ethnography of an adult literacy centre), visual artist (with zippers & wire), gardener (of dying basil plants), musician (presently learning concertina), avid reader (currently Irish literature), and bicyclist (on a newly-acquired Pashley).

I am passionate about the use of art-making as a tool in work and in play. I use art for making meaning and for communication, for creating and maintaining balance in my life (see my website www.soroke.com). I want to politicize the creative process of art-making in order to broaden the participant and audience base by reconnecting art to the fabric of the human community.

I have been working in the adult literacy field since 1994.  I trained as a volunteer tutor in Dundrum, Dublin and have held a variety of different posts in the literacy service since then;  my favourite being tutoring, especially numeracy/maths.  I am particularly interested in the connection between inequality and literacy and recently presented a Masters Thesis entitled Adult Literacy:  The Emancipatory Potential.  I am currently one of the development workers on the LEIS project and I am based in the Equality Studies Centre UCD.

Claire Henderson
Project Administrator
Essential Skills Office, Institute of Lifelong Learning, University Road
Belfast, BT7 1NN
Tel :  +44 (0) 28 9097 5168
Fax: +44 (0) 28 9097 1084
Email :  c.henderson@qub.ac.uk