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Our Story

The SAOL Project was established in 1995 in response to findings from a Master's thesis on women and addiction by Carmel Dunne, a local Health Service manager. Her research highlighted a critical gap: women on methadone needed specific, gender-responsive services that could attend to their complex needs. Community leaders recognised the validity of these findings and worked hard to secure funding to start a project for women in Dublin's North Inner City.

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It was a fitting beginning for SAOL. Throughout our 30-year history, we have consistently taken ideas from research, from community voices, and from the lived experience of the women we work with, and developed responses that make a real difference — not only for those who come to SAOL, but for services across Ireland and beyond.

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Since the first class was held on 16th October 1995, SAOL has been supported by the community, statutory partners and international colleagues in providing education, rehabilitation and holistic support. Over three decades, we have worked with more than 350 women; graduated ten Community Employment cohorts; supported more than 250 children and families; trained more than 2,000 professionals; and facilitated more than 25,000 downloads and publications of addiction manuals, research reports, toolkits and creative writing, including poetry authored by women in recovery.

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Education, Feminism and Voice

At SAOL, we are educators, inspired by feminism and by the work of Paulo Freire. In Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Freire wrote: "Any situation in which some men prevent others from engaging in the process of inquiry is one of violence... to alienate humans from their own decision-making is to change them into objects."

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Our work as educators is to ensure that the women who come to SAOL can engage fully in their own decision-making processes. This means creating a space where women are not told what recovery should look like, but supported to define it for themselves. When we stop doing this, we will have failed. When there is no longer a need for us to do this, we will have succeeded.

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How We Work Today

SAOL was originally set up to work with 16 women over two years. The service has since grown and adapted significantly. Since 2008, we have developed aftercare supports, expanded our programme offer, and deepened our capacity to respond to complexity. We now provide more than 28 hours of classes every week; key working for every participant who attends; at least 10 hours of psycho-educational groupwork per week; early years education and childcare for up to 10 children; and a range of specialist supports including addiction rehabilitation, peer education, family work, domestic violence response, and weekend services.

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Any woman who calls to SAOL's door will be welcomed and offered support immediately. Access to structured groupwork or programmes may take a little longer depending on capacity, but we do not operate a waiting list. We believe that if a woman is brave enough to knock on our door, then we need to meet her without delay. From that first contact, we work alongside her to identify what support she needs, what goals matter to her, and how SAOL can help.

SAOL remains a place where women are met with respect, care and genuine opportunity — and where recovery is understood not as a single destination, but as a journey that each woman defines for herself.