Summary:

Quest is an action-learning provider focused on building citizens, within action-learning cadres spanning international boundaries, committed to sustainable development through collaborative entrepreneurial action. Quest grew out of the economic turnaround, which has transformed Ireland in recent decades. Ireland once the great missionary country of internationally-inclined people has potentially a key role to play in the future struggles to achieve a more balanced, peaceful and sustainable world. In the heart of the tiger the lessons to be learned are unique and important but also woeful and foreboding. Corruption has swept aside the entrepreneurial fervour, which created the tiger, placing Ireland quite rapidly and surprisingly as an offending nation and potential failure. Quest is building its action-learning programme in the heart of this economic and social engine, probing and challenging it through international fellowships of volunteers and students. Quest is an alternative school which is less about traditional education and more about building citizens who are in tune with the modern World, the real challenges, and the corruption threat – learners who are committed to the acceptance that they might differ from the norm and “plough new furrows” into the less known world of future sustainable development initiatives in government, in business, in NGO’s and as a way of life. Lifelong support networks are key to the Quest experience. The quiet pursuit, and propagation, of honesty and integrity demands tremendous lifelong support. Quest operates directly with volunteers, particularly local, who get involved in running Quest and with students, faculty and others, recruited through international university and college partnerships. Quest is building, as part of the learning experience, its own international mini-campus around the restoration of Charleville Castle in Ireland. The castle becomes the focal point for regular volunteer-driven events and festivals, which are key tools in the experiential learning, advocacy and cadre-building process – providing tangible memories and the sense of home and “belonging” to growing numbers.