A news report about a girl who died in a car crash led to a campaign on organ donation by St Joseph’s Secondary School in Rochfortbridge, Co Westmeath. Patricia Flynn (16) heard a radio report about the girl, who had filled in an organ donor card but whose parents did not know about it until a few months after her death. “The family felt they had lost her for a second time because they hadn’t gone through with her wishes,” she said.
The students decided to start a campaign to encourage others to carry an organ donor card. “It gripped us. We had this buzz about the project,” said Alan Rigney (16). They set up a Facebook page (Be a mate, Donate) and have almost 500 followers. They also set up a Twitter account, distributed badges and put up posters locally. “We just want everyone’s wishes to be carried out and know what their options are,” he said. The project was joint winner of the bronze medal.
* Students of Moyne Community School, Longford invented a safety device to help prevent children getting caught in window blind cords. Cillian Hourican (16) said the class had heard about an incident in which a toddler became entangled in a blind cord and died. When they researched it further, they discovered that one child died in Ireland or England every 18 months after getting caught in a cord.
“That’s when we came up with the idea [of coming] up with something to stop this happening,” he said. With the help of their metalwork department, the students designed “cord up”, a plastic spool device which keeps the cord safe and is easily attached. They make the device in the school and have already sold more than 350.
The product, which was tested by a blinds safety officer, is patent pending and is for sale on their website cordup.weebly.comor directly from the school. They won the Making Our World Safer category.
* Promoting local foods in Tipperary was the mission of students from Ursuline Secondary School in Thurles. Jenny Byrne (16) said the group decided to set up “A Taste of Tipp” because Tipperary produced many good products but people did not know about them. Their survey of people leaving a supermarket found that only a handful could tell them whether they had local products in their baskets.
“Even ourselves, we didn’t know some of them, but we tried them and they were really good,” she said.
The students came up with a list of more than 20 products including crisps, water, cheese, bread, milk, desserts and jams, and organised a day of tasting. Some 95 per cent of people who tried the products said they would buy them. The group also created a sticker with a Tipperary flag and the “Taste of Tipp” logo and, with the approval of the local supermarkets, attached the stickers to local products. They won the Making Our Community Better category.
* A number of recent suicides in Co Wexford led to the Smile positive mental health project in Gorey Community School. Eugene Kavanagh (16) said his group decided to raise the morale of students by organising events such as Zumba dancing and giving out lollipops and cakes. They went around Gorey asking people to jump for joy and photographed them, mounting an exhibition with the results.
Stephen Maguire (17) said they got a great reaction from the people of Gorey when they took the photographs. “The whole community really does care,” he said. They also asked younger children to list what made them happy and came up with answers such as “tickling”. Jonathan Halnon said he hoped the project “might actually make a change” to people’s lives. They won the Making Our World Healthier – Mental Health award.
