Jayne's inspiring WEA learner story

Arts & Crafts

A real feeling of freedom

Jayne started studying with WEA during the Covid-19 lockdown, and now uses the art and textiles skills she has learned to support other people on their journeys of recovery.

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“During lockdown I signed up for quite a few courses and I’ve kept doing quite a few ever since. It’s had a massive impact. As things started to relax from Covid my partner was taken ill and I’m now a carer, so it’s given me a real feeling of freedom and connection with other people as well as the actual content that I learn.”

Jayne also volunteers to help others around her and in her community. “My confidence to volunteer, taking on Trustee and board member roles with a charity and a CIC respectively, has definitely come through doing courses with the WEA. When faced with becoming a carer, instead of feeling lost, this helped me…and I can cope with a steep learning curve!”

“Everything I’ve learned, if I can share it, I’ll be sharing it,”

Jayne

Jayne says. “All the stitching and the beading that I learned are going into the recovery coat that I’m making... One of the things we say in recovery, about our recovery, is that you only keep what you’ve got by giving it away. I feel like that about anything I learn, I want to pass it on.”

Video transcript: Jayne
I'm Jane Gosnell and I've won the Learner Community Contribution award.

When we were on lockdown for Covid and I was sort of cruising the internet to see if there were things we could do online. I found out that WEA was doing courses on Zoom so I signed up for quite a few and I've kept doing quite a few ever since.

It has had a massive impact as things started to relax from Covid my partner was taken ill and I'm now a carer so it's given me a real feeling of freedom and connection with other people as well as the actual content that I learned.

Everything I've learned really if I can share it I'll be sharing it, all the stitching and the beading and things like that, that I've learned to going into the recovery coat that I'm making.

A recent project by Paul or Portraits of Recovery which was about mending was actually funded by the WEA, and I did my skill share doing sashiko and borrow and visible mending and it was really a taster session to inspire as much as anything, but that was full circle. I'd learned those skills with the WEA and then was sharing them on a project that was funded by the WEA and it just felt so right.

I'm a little bit embarrassed if I'm honest I don't actually think I've done anything award-winning but I'm in recovery from addiction I'm very public a visible recovery is how we share recovery and hope with other people, and one of the things we say in recovery about our recovery is you only keep what you've got by giving it away, so I sort of feel like that about anything I learn I want to share it on.