Experience of Liberties initiative life-altering for some participants

One of the largest Irish programmes to get technology into schools and the local community is the Liberties Learning Initiative, a co- operative programme between Diageo and the Digital Hub.

As dozens of Liberties children noisily gathered recently to show off their projects at the Thomas Street offices of the Digital Hub, Diageo announced that it would match its original €1.3 million funding for the programme with another €1.3 million.

For community groups and schools, the project has supplied information and communication technologies ranging from Mindstorms programmable robots to laptops to state-of-the-art sound and video equipment, broadband connections and training for teachers and youth group leaders.

The direct beneficiaries are adults who attend computer classes, teenagers who have created music and award-winning short films, and children who have discovered new ways of learning with information and communication technologies in the classroom.

For some, the experience is truly life-altering. Kim O'Connor, a bright 19 year old, admits that a year ago, she was so shy she rarely spoke out in class or got involved in activities. "But when I got hold of a \ camera, I couldn't let it go. I just got lots of confidence. The minute I picked it up, I knew it was something I wanted to do," she says.

Now the young filmmaker - whose talent is quite marked, say project organisers - is aiming for college ("I want to learn about everything") and a film-making career.

Paul Leonard, a 13 year old at St Audoen's, explains his group's detailed transport-themed project, built of Lego, programmable motors, flashing lights, and added cardboard cutout people, signs and hoardings.

How did they get the idea? "All of this is plain mind," he says, surrounded by classmates and gesturing over a Luas, a transport vehicle, a garage and other constructions neatly laid out on a display table in the Hub. "It's all imagination."

At another table, Liberties College students Shauna Roe and Edel Hanley, both 13, demonstrate a windmill project. Its cog-based pulley system that turns the windmill required some extra maths and engineering work, they say. Next time, they'd prefer to make a castle with doors and drawbridges that open, adds Edel.

Classmate Jonathan Burke, 14, walks around with a painstakingly built automated wooden dinosaur skeleton. He loves dinosaurs but screwing all the pieces together "was a little monotonous", he admits.

What did he learn overall? "I learned that perseverance really pays off," he says.