Three youth groups shine at Foróige Awards

Youth groups from County Wicklow came up trumps at the recent Foróige Youth Citizenship Awards.

The WAY Project, Valhalla Warriors and Wicklow Comhairle na nÓg all received awards at the national event.

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.

The event was opened by Minister for Children and Youth Affairs Dr Katherine Zappone TD, presented by 2FM’s Eoghan McDermott, and also featured talks from disability rights campaigner Joanne O’Riordan, and social media expert Darragh Doyle.

Each of the three Wicklow groups completed projects as part of their applications.

The WAY Project completed an intergenerational project involving technology.

The members visited the local day care centre for elderly people to gain ideas for their youth citizenship project. Here they met a lady who had very little movement and used an iPad to communicate. However, the device kept slipping off her knee which was a nuisance and could break her only means of communication. The group made the lady a homemade iPad stand, which doubled as a pillow, and sits comfortably on her knee.

Valhalla Warriors got involved in ‘ The Big Viking Festival’ and produced their project from there. Each member took on a task and they thoroughly enjoyed working together,

Wicklow Comhairle na nÓg organised a survey to find out what issues young people face in their area.

They wanted to make sure all young people’s voices were being heard in Wicklow and realised there was no data being collected on young people over the last five years. The group decided to do a ‘Wicklow Youth Survey’ to find issues affecting young people and then try do something about it. They printed out surveys and distributed them to schools around Wicklow.

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.’