Inspirational Michelle impresses at graduation ceremony

A Cavan Town woman who suffered a stroke just two and a half years ago has marked her recovery by sharing her inspirational story with her fellow graduates last week.
Michelle Johnston was the guest speaker as she joined hundreds of students to pick up their certificates at last Monday's County Cavan Adult Education graduation in the Hotel Kilmore. The ceremony was for students who participated in community education, literacy and skills for work programmes throughout the county.
“I had a stroke two and a half years ago,” explained the smiling Michelle. “I look at things differently now, it catapulted me into doing stuff. I joined the CE scheme in July and then the following September I started in the ETB and I have been going ever since.
“I joined the students' sub committee for NALA and went to the National Learning Forum in April and I met President Michael Higgins a few weeks ago,” said Michelle Johnston.
“Hopefully I can go on and have a degree in Psychotherapy,” she enthused, laughingly adding: “Success story!”
Michelle's speech to the audience received a huge and well deserved round of applause.
A busy year saw her complete Maths and Communications in Level 4 from September to December, and from January this year she progressed onto the Word Processing class and also completed a Microsoft Access course. 
From April to July, Michelle undertook an introduction to health care course, which will prove helpful as she now progresses to doing Social Care in Cavan Institute and then progress onto Athlone IT.
Michelle added: “I would like to work in the area of the addiction services, as I think there is a lot of need for this service – it is not a topic that is handled very well.”
Deirdre Byrne, Cavan Adult Education officer explained that approximately 1,500 learners participate in the various courses county-wide. 
Having received their level 5 and level 6 qualifications they can now progress to either higher education courses. The AEO said that there are excellent non-accredited and accredited courses available in centres across the county courtesy of the County Adult Education programme.
Chairman of the Adult Education Board under the auspices of CMETB, Joe McGrath told The Anglo-Celt that the graduation night is always an impressive event marking the culmination of 12 months of hard work by students and teachers.
Mr McGrath says the part time courses afford a second chance to pursue education and an enormous opportunity to a broad spectrum of learners, including those who may have dropped out of school for any number of reasons, including economical and social.