Robert Reidof Marist College in Athlone describes an innovative project that is helping to rebuild a hurricane-swept village.
"TY is a doss," he says. "It's a waste of a year," she says. "Sure, you don't do anything in there," another says. You're all wrong, I say.
My name is Robert Reid, and I attend the Marist College in Athlone. I am in the middle of transition year and enjoying every minute of it, from trips to the Gaisce awards to work experience.
One thing has to stand out from everything else, however - one thing I can look back on and say, wow, I did that. For me, and others in my group, it has been the Young Social Innovators programme, with our Pen Pals project.
So what happened? On October 5th, 2005, Hurricane Stan caused a mudslide near the town of Santiago Atitlán, in the developing Central American country of Guatemala, killing more than 1,000 people. Santiago Atitlán is roughly the size of Athlone, to put it in perspective, and Stan was one of the five worst storms of the season.
Hundreds of families were left homeless, and their livelihoods were destroyed, as their coffee and banana farms now lie beneath metres of mud.
Last year our teacher John Tiernan travelled to Guatemala, where he worked on a housing project and helped to teach children English.
Six of us were horrified by his stories, and last October we decided to look for ways to help the people of Santiago Atitlán get back on their feet.
Mr Tiernan suggested designing pens that they could make for us to sell. Our initial designs have completely sold out. We're expanding the idea into other local schools and some businesses.
The pens would sell for 25c in Guatemala, but here we can sell them for significantly more. All of the money returns to the people who made the pens; some of it helps to build homes for people still in temporary housing, and a portion goes to an education fund for children whose parents can't afford to send them to school.
We sell the pens for €3 each or €5 for two. Our target is €5,000; so far we have made €1,450.
This is no small-scale project, and we feel it has massive potential. We plan to approach Croke Park about selling county versions of the pens as official GAA merchandise, so kids can be proud to carry their county colours while they're doing their schoolwork. Next, we hope, we'll showcase our project at the RDS, in Dublin, on May 9th and 10th.
If you'd like to find out more, please contact the Marist College in Athlone and ask for me.
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