Castleknock school shortlisted for humanitarian award

The conscientious 4th/5th class pupils of St. Brigid’s Church of Ireland national school in Castleknock have pulled off a major coup by being shortlisted for a major national humanitarian award.

Just ten schools out of a total entry of 450 have been nominated for the Irish Aid Our World Global Schools’ Award and St. Brigid’s will be invited to the awards ceremony at Farmleigh House on February 26th.

This is the third year that Irish Aid has run the Our World Global Schools’ Awards programme for all primary schools in both the north and south of Ireland. The overall purpose of the programme is to raise awareness among Irish students of the lives of children of a similar age in the developing world. By taking part in this programme, children can learn how Ireland works with these countries not as providers of charity but as partners for development.

Each competing school had to submit a project to the judging panel and the shortlist was announced at the end of January.

“This is absolutely amazing news,” said teacher and project coordinator Amy Ruth O’Connell, when Community Voice broke the news of their success to her last week. “It is a fantastic tribute to all the hard work and interest shown by the pupils and we will certainly be looking forward to our visit to Farmleigh.”

The name of St. Brigids’ project was called “Powerful Poverty” and Ms. O’Connell explained exactly what it entailed. “We gave them no information at the start,” she recounted. “Instead we handed out questionnaires to determine what their ideas of poverty were. A lot of the responses were the normal stereotypes of poverty in Africa which, to be fair, are shared by a lot of the adult population too.

“Then we looked to our own community and did a lot of research on poverty in Ireland. We compared poverty here to that in other countries, comparing the doctor / patient ratios both here and in Africa, for example, and we unearthed a lot of statistical information to bolster our findings.

“The children were split into five groups and each one maintained a scrapbook for the duration of the project. There were poems and diary entries and photos of children poring over maps and the children enjoyed it immensely.”

Although the five scrapbooks had to be submitted to the judges, the children also set up a display area in the school to communicate their findings to the rest of the school community. Children from other classes came to look and thus the essential message that poverty is all around us was spread still further.

This is the first year that St. Brigid’s has entered the competition and it is something of a feather in their cap that they are one of only two schools in the Dublin region to make the finals.

“I am delighted that over 450 primary schools participated in this year’s Irish Aid Our World Global Schools’ Awards,” said Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern T.D. “These awards raise awareness of the challenges faced by children in developing countries. I’d also encourage the many children who participated in this year’s awards to visit the new Irish Aid Centre in Dublin.”

The Irish Aid Our World Global Schools’ Awards 2007 will take place at Farmleigh House in Dublin on Tuesday February 26th. All short-listed projects from the above schools will be exhibited at Farmleigh House and Minister for State, Michael Kitt T.D. will preside over the awards ceremony on the day.

 

Community Voice, Media House, Church Avenue, Blanchardstown, Dublin 15
Phone +353 1 822 1432 -  Fax +353 1 640 4444
info@communityvoice.ie

All content and images are © Perceptions[Publicity and Event Management] Limited. All rights reserved
Site developed by Vincent Cahill