MORE THAN 400 teenagers will experience the country’s first purpose-built interactive centre, as part of a new initiative aimed at encouraging teenagers to identify every day threats to their safety.
Transition year students from 15 secondary schools across Limerick are being invited to navigate three scenarios as part of a three-day Safety Street Projectevent taking place at Limerick Institute of Technology.
Limerick’s Community Co-ordinators devised the programme in an effort to help teenagers develop safe strategies to deal with potential emergencies while also changing their behaviour to keep themselves and others safe.
The real-life scenarios include a walk down a dark alley versus the longer brighter walk home, the impact of antisocial behaviour on others and a question-and-answer session with two recovering drug addicts in a public park setting.
Each scenario also features discussions with representatives from Limerick City Council, the Health Service Executive and An Garda Síochána. “Teenagers can often be hard to impress and hard to reach, but we’ve had great interaction so far and great reactions to the different scenarios,” Jenny Stone, spokeswoman for Limerick Community Co-ordinators explained. “They are listening to what the gardaí are saying and the gardaí are talking to them in a way that is relevant and that they understand,” she added.
Community Garda Sgt Ronan McMahon said students were being given an opportunity to learn about the potential consequences of their behaviour both for themselves and for their parents. “It’s a learning experience and it’s only advice we can give them. It’s up to them to take the advice.”
“Mary”, a 29-year-old recovering addict from Limerick, is among those who will speak to students over the three days.
“I started using drugs at the age of 12. It started with solvents and it ended up with heroin. What we are trying to tell the teenagers is that it can start off as one fun thing to do but there are serious consequences,” she said.
“If us being here even changes one person’s mind then we have achieved something. The girls seem to be reacting more, but I think once the teenagers realise that we are not actors and we have actually lived through this, they really react,” she added.
The Limerick Community Co-ordinators was the first partnership of its kind in the country established as a pilot project in 2007 to help communities solve a range of social problems.