Green fingers at Bailieborough Community School
- by Katie Forde -
"If you want to change something, you can't wait for someone else to do it. If you have a good team behind you, and something you believe in, you can do it."
Those were the inspirational words of Shane O'Brien, one of four students from Bailieborough Community School, who were behind an environmental project to achieve regional recognition.
Shane, along with Daire Conlan, James Mulligan and Andrew Carolan, reached the Ulster semi finals of the ECO-UNESCO Young Environmentalist Awards (YEA). They took place last Thursday, March 27, at the Lough Neagh Discovery Centre, Craigavon, where young people from schools and youth groups across Ulster took part in the event.
The Bailieborough Community School project sought to raise awareness of the damage caused by food imports. The students highlighted the importance of locally produced food for our health and the planet, and planted an allotment on school grounds to grow herbs and vegetables to be used as ingredients in Home Economics classes.
ECO-UNESCO’s Young Environmentalist Awards is a programme across Ireland that recognises the work of young people, who have taken environmental action in their school or community and come up with creative solutions to solve environmental issues
Forty-three teams from across Ulster, including from Cavan, competed in the ‘ECO-Dens’, to win a place in the final of the Young Environmentalist Awards in Dublin in May.
They will find out next week if they have made the final cut once the adjudication team has finalised the shortlist.
The students themselves spoke more on the competition. "We are all from agricultural backgrounds, so we see first hand the imports from outside of the country, and how we can actually source these things from Ireland. That's what made us want to do this project. The best part of doing this was getting to work outdoors in the school gardens. It was good to be hands-on and see things ourselves, rather than just reading it off of a sheet," said Shane.
"It's always important for younger people to get stuck into projects like this," he added.
Elaine Nevin, national director of ECO-UNESCO, praised the students, including the lads from Bailieborough, for their projects.
“The passion and problem-solving initiative of these young people’s projects, including those from Cavan, offers great hope for the fight against climate change and reminds us that we can all play our part, from a community to a national level.”
Nationally, around 78 projects featured in this year's competition. Projects addressed key problems like climate change, biodiversity, and waste.
"We are excited to see who makes the final and look forward to crowning winners in May. Regardless, the real winner is the future of climate activism, in the safe hands of these incredibly bright young people," said Ms Nevin.