Garda Youth Achievement Awards for Community College

FIVE students from Castleisland Community College were honoured at the annual Garda Youth Achievement Awards in the Ballyroe Heights Hotel on Friday night.

Ava Fitzmaurice received an award for her contributions to her local community.

She is involved in her late father’s memorial charity event, ‘The Paudie Fitzmaurice Tractor Run’, which raises vital money for local causes.

Ava excels at sport and has received many awards at local, national and international level.

Basketball, athletics, boxing and Gaelic football are her sports, and she has won All-Ireland medals for basketball, athletics and boxing.

Ava represented Ireland in boxing and won European gold medals in Italy, June 2018.

Nathan Egan is another student who received an award for his engagement with his community.

Nathan has been involved with St Mary’s Basketball Club.

He has trained as a referee and has volunteered as a referee for the county league.

He also trains the under-5 to under-8 basketball players every Thursday.

Agricultural Science students Kevin Lenihan, Eamon Nolan and James McDonnell were conscious of the many dangers present on farms.

When they heard about the tragic news of Nevin Spence, an Ulster rugby player who tragically died from a slurry-related incident, they said that they would get involved to try and help develop an idea around slurry safety.

They won the overall safety award, and progress to the Lee Strand Regional Garda Youth Achievement Awards to be held in May.

The three students came up with two safety alarm ideas. Firstly, an alarm containing sensors that identify high levels of methane and hydrogen sulphide gases.

This will be connected to an alarm which can be put in the farmer’s house.

The alarm will ring when high levels of toxic gases are detected outside the slurry pit.

This will, in turn, alert the farmer, letting them know that no adults, children or animals should be near the area in which agitation is occurring.

Secondly, they are promoting the use of a motion sensor alarm at the gate into the slurry pit, so if any object or person passes through it, the alarm in the house will sound.

Finally, they also have come up with the idea to paint the area around the slurry pit opening in red. This would act as a visual sign for danger, for younger kids especially.

They have presented their project to students in their school; visited farms to discuss their idea with farmers; and promoted their project on the school’s Facebook page.