Nenagh Foróige group at Youth Citizenship Awards
Nenagh Foróige's Gardening Project, a community garden to commemorate the 1916 Rising, featured at Youth Citizenship Awards in Dublin recently.
After brainstorming various ideas, the Nenagh Foróige Club decided on a gardening project. They were provided with an area of grass outside the town Court House and designed the garden themselves. Working with the Tidy Towns Committee they decided to base the theme of the garden on the 1916 Rising and the committee provided the young people with plants and flowers. The project is ongoing and the garden continues to improve.
They said: “We have learnt that there are many opportunities to help and improve your community and that people are always grateful for your help.”
Nenagh Foróige Girls Afterschools Group, a project to boost relations between the generations, also featured at the Dublin event.
The girls brainstormed for ideas on how they could help their local community. They decided they wanted to help the elderly and wanted to “put a smile on their faces”.
They got permission to go into St Conlon’s Nursing Home and in the weeks coming up to the event practised music and poems to perform. After the performances, the girls chatted with the residents, gave them sweets and biscuits, and took photos. The visit was enjoyed by the elderly and the girls were invited back again.
They said: “We learned that older people share the same interests as ourselves and that we can make a difference in our community”.
The Foróige Youth Citizenship Awards in partnership with Aldi took place on Saturday 2nd July in the Citywest Hotel and Conference Centre, Dublin.
The awards celebrated the work of young people in the community over the past year with over 2,000 young people in attendance as well as hundreds of volunteers. 160 community enhancement projects were exhibited at the event with all 26 Counties represented.
Seán Campbell, CEO of Foróige said, “Community wellbeing was the clear winner when it came to driving forces behind this year’s projects, with the vast majority of projects built on a pride and passion in community that bodes well for the future. It is so inspiring to see what young people can achieve when they work together and put their minds to something. We are extremely proud to be working in partnership with Aldi for the second year running on the Foróige Youth Citizenship Awards and the numbers of young people and communities involved have been going from strength to strength.”
Finbar McCarthy, Group Buying Director at Aldi Ireland said today, “Foróige’s underlying aim of building self-esteem and confidence in young people through challenging experiences is something that we at Aldi strongly believe in, and with our 126 stores nationwide we will continue to look at ways we can support this very worthwhile organisation at a national and regional level.”
The event was opened by Minister for Children and Youth Affairs Dr Katherine Zappone TD, MC’d by 2FM’s Eoghan McDermott, and also featured talks from disability rights campaigner Joanne O’Riordan, and social media expert Darragh Doyle.
It celebrated the inspirational contribution that these young people have made to their communities with music from Keywest, giant indoor rock climbing and abseiling, a snowboarding simulator, recording studio, miniature golf and a variety of other activities. The young people in attendance also got to learn about the amazing work of their peers taking place throughout the country.