Global appeal to fund Steiner school

A group of North Clare parents are beginning an unusual campaign this week, in an effort to build a unique school for their children.
A Steiner school in Ennistymon will launch its internet-based fundraising campaign ‘Build Mol an Óige’ this Friday inviting people around the world to ‘crowd fund’ the project.
Mol an Óige Steiner National School is currently in temporary prefabricated buildings on a borrowed site and has grown from 11 to 123 pupils in seven years. Now it requires funding in the region of €2 million to build a new school and parents have taken up the challenge of raising it.
“In order to construct the new school buildings on the new site, it would currently cost in the order of €2m. Like all departments, the Department of Education has greatly reduced its budget and as a result its programme of school building. It will be at least five years before any school funded by the department is built, but most likely longer as there is already a long list of schools waiting,” said Stuart Woolley, committee member of Build Mol an Óige.
“As parents we want the very best for our children and so a group of us got together to form Build Mol an Óige in order to raise the €2m necessary to fund the building of the new school and therefore move to the new site as soon as possible. We have given ourselves 12 months to achieve this,” he explained.
The group plans to use Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and other social media as key tools in their efforts to raise their profile and funds for the project.
“Build Mol an Óige intends to appeal to a worldwide community of sympathetic individuals to crowd fund the project. Social media will be a key part of the fundraising process, as we like to think it’s not €2m, it’s a million people giving €2 euro each. The use of social media gives us the unprecedented chance to reach out to millions of people like never before. Contact me on stuart@buildmolanoige.org for further information,” Mr Woolley stated.
The original idea for fundraising came about in December and after some careful thought, planning, and encouragement from the school community the first official meeting was held on February 4. Already the group has recorded a version of the Internet sensation the Harlem Shake starring parents involved in the group.
“There is great interest from the parent body, people really want the school to be built,” Mr Woolley stated.
“I am a software engineer myself and I see a lot of projects funded like this in the States and more recently in the UK and I have noticed a lot of community projects have started to be crowd funded,” he added.
Conditions in the existing temporary structure are not adequate, according to Mr Woolley, and parents are no longer content to wait for the Department of Education to provide a new building.
“The existing school classrooms are all port-a-cabins and are cold and damp in the winter and too hot and stuffy in the summer. Space is extremely limited and the school has only a hard surfaced yard and no grounds upon which the children can play and use as part of their education,” he said.
“There are no dedicated library facilities, no assembly hall, very little office space, no staff room and next to no storage facilities for school resources. The children spend a great deal of time outdoors and the problem of drying clothes and boots is challenging in such a small space. The lack of dedicated outdoor facilities is severe and the school would dearly like to move to its large and beautiful new site,” he added.
The Build Mol An Óige Group is made up of parents whose children will attend, are attending or have attended Mol an Óige Steiner National School in Ennistymon. They acknowledge that raising €2m in a year is an enormous task.
“We realise it’s going to be hard work, but we’re honest, committed people and believe that we have this chance to grow something wonderful in our small corner of the West of Ireland,” they stated.
The school uses the Steiner-Waldorf approach to implement the primary school curriculum and currently Build Mol an Óige is engaging with an architect who himself attended a Steiner school to build a unique school to complement the Steiner way of teaching.
On Friday the group will launch its dedicated crowd-funding website at midday with a parade from the existing school to the site. When there, the children will pin wishes to a wish tree and the first performance of a new song specially written for the project will take place. Friday’s launch is open to the public. More information on the launch and the project is available from www.buildmolanoige.org.