Citizenship awards that debunk teen stereotypes

WHILE teenagers are often labelled as lazy and spoiled, the 2,500 young people who attended the Aldi Foróige Youth Citizenship Awards in Dublin’s Citywest Hotel on Saturday debunked these stereotypes.

Of the 200 groups of 10-18 year olds that attended the awards which celebrated innovative community projects, agricultural and rural -based projects played a central role.

Adrian Crowley (15) is a member of the Ballineen Foróige Club team in West Cork which won a Gold Star prize at the awards, along with his two friends and fellow club members, Joseph Cronin and James Crowley.

The three teenagers took part in the recent Ballineen Foróige Young Engineers Exhibition in the village which encouraged them to develop a project over six weeks that would help solve a problem in the area.

Since all three teenagers are from farming backgrounds, Adrian said it was only natural for them to try find a solution to a farming issue. For them the most obvious issue was farm safety. The three young men went on to nickname themselves the ‘Agri Lads’ and developed a button with the aim of making operating PTO shafts safer.

“We heard a lot of stories of people who had been unlucky as a result of PTO shaft injuries, so that’s why we decided to focus our project on that,” says Adrian. With the support of their parents, the three boys developed the project ‘Hit Stop’, a kill-switch button for the rear of the tractor that can be pressed in the event of an emergency and turns off the PTO shaft immediately.

Ballineen Foróige volunteer Colm O’Sullivan praised the Agri Lads’ efforts for creating a potentially life-saving project.

“The button is wired to the PTO and they’re constantly looking at ways at how they can improve it. They’re even speaking at a tractor run in West Cork in a couple of weeks too,” says Colm.

Another rural focused project showcased at the awards and that could also save lives is an Eircode campaign undertaken by Bonniconlon Foróige, near Ballina, Co Mayo. Volunteer Nikki Lawrence says that the project was initially aimed at vulnerable people in the community such as the elderly and those living alone, but soon it involved everyone.

“The entire club of 51 young people prepared a database of Eircodes. We then laminated them in bright orange and magnetised them so they could be stuck to the fridge and accessed easily in case of an emergency.

“So many people don’t know their Eircode, so if this project helps at least one person we’ ll be happy. I’m really proud of the whole team who put so much hard work in to it,” says Nicola.