Banagher student wins Strasbourg trip in EU active citizenship initiative
A prizegiving ceremony for Transition Year students who participated in the Graduate.ie Online Citizenship Programme was held yesterday (Tuesday) in Banagher College, Coláiste Na Sionna, in Offaly.
Organised and funded by the Midland Regional Drug & Alcohol Task Force (MRDATF), the Graduate.ie programme is an online citizenship and democracy programme for second-level students in Ireland. It's a Government and EU-funded programme which has been in operation since 2001.
The overall prize this year, sponsored by the MRDATF, was for one selected student from Offaly who participated fully in the initiative to attend a three-day educational trip to Strasbourg.
The winning student was Ava Maher of Banagher College, Coláiste Na Sionna.
Ava will now travel to Strasbourg in November and spend one full day at the European Parliament, where she will have the opportunity to take part in a youth parliament (Euroscola) with students from other EU member states.
During her stay, she will also be visiting other places of educational interest around the city of Strasbourg and surrounding areas.
The MRDATF rolled out the Graduate.ie Online Citizenship initiative in partnership with 15 secondary schools across Longford, Westmeath, Laois and Offaly, with Transition Year students invited to participate.
The programme commenced last September and lasted for 20 weeks in all.
During this period, 1,099 Transition Year students registered to take part in the programme and, of these, an average of 668 students took part in the programme on a weekly basis.
Each week for 20 weeks of the academic year, students logged onto www.graduate.ie where they had to answer a number of questions on a range of issues to include drugs and alcohol, health and safety, environmental awareness and climate action, democracy and participation, financial literacy, EU affairs, consumer protection, tourism and regional development.
Participants were then directed by hyperlinks to the relevant sponsors’ website where they researched the correct answer and then submitted their answers to Graduate.ie.
The computer randomly selected weekly winners from all of the correct entries, and there was at least one winner selected each week from across the country.
Speaking about the initiative Joe Potter, Chairperson, MRDATF, said: "This is such a worthwhile initiative allowing the participants to develop active citizenship, an understanding of the workings of democracy, and intercultural understanding and awareness.
"I would like to acknowledge the Midland Regional Drug & Alcohol Task Force for sponsoring the prizes and all the schools who participated in the Graduate.ie 2023. This was a great opportunity to research and learn more about the dangers associated with drug and alcohol misuse."
Antoinette Kinsella, Co-ordinator of MRDATF added that it was "very happy to support the roll out of the Graduate.ie initiative across the Midlands area.
"The uptake and participation received from schools who took part in the initiative was very encouraging and I would like to thank all the students and teachers for their support.
"It is hoped that this initiative will assist in developing life skills such as preparing for the world of work, teamwork, collaboration and valuable insights into the vocational dimensions of life after school.
"I am sure the winning candidate will also appreciate having the opportunity to experience how the European Parliament works by partaking in the Euroscola Youth Parliament and having the opportunity to pose a question in the European parliament," said Antoinette.
The MRDATF will be commencing the roll out of this initiative again in September of this year, and it looks forward to again engaging with all secondary schools across the Midlands region to support the roll out of same.