CCC
student nominated for community award
A seventeen year old student from Castleknock Community College has
become the third student from the college in four years to be nominated
for the national finals of the Pramerica Spirit of Community Awards
programme.
The programme, introduced in 2006, is an all-Ireland scheme that recognises
and rewards post-primary/second-level students for volunteer work carried
out in their communities. 
Olivia Fitzsimons, a leaving certificate student from Portersgate in
Clonsilla, was nominated for the award by her school principal John
Cronin for her work with BeKind Ireland in Calcutta. Olivia lead a team
of classmates in raising over €60,000 for the project and last
year they visited the area to learn more about the work being done and
to provide whatever help they could.
Olivia and her class were first introduced to BeKind by two former students
– Dearbhaile Ní Mhaoileoin and Susan Keely who visited
the BeKind project in 2008. The class was so inspired by what they heard
that they set up the project with the assistance of their class head
Eoin Ó Maoileoin, Dearbhaile’s father.
According to John Cronin, “this work with BeKind will become a
regular programme for our school. These students will in time become
a support network for the next generation, returning to advise and assist
them in this work. We are very proud of Olivia and what her team has
achieved.”
For Olivia, who plans to study social care after her leaving cert, the
trip was “an eye-opening experience. I know the phrase ‘a
life changing experience’ is a cliché but that is just
what it was. It really made us cop on to ourselves and see just how
luck and privileged we are,” she said.
Together with the other 19 national finalists, Olivia will attend a
gala awards dinner in Cork on March 24th at which they will each receive
€500 and an engraved silver medallion. However she has already
decided to pass this money on to sponsor a child in Calcutta through
the BeKind project. “It would not have been fair for me to keep
the money to use for some sort of shopping spree,” she explained.
“This money would be worth so much more to them than it would
to me.”
Two of the finalists will also be named All-Ireland Youth Volunteers
of the Year and will receive €1,000 for a charity they select together
with a gold medallion and an all expenses paid trip to the United States
in May to take part in the Prudential Spirit of Community Awards ceremony.
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