MY TY WEEK:Sinéad Kilgarriff (16) of Our Lady's Bower, Athlone

‘LAST WEEK, I was in Dublin on work experience with Amnesty International. I stayed with my cousin and commuted in to the city on the bus. I was always terrified that I’d miss my stop, and spent the first few days staring out the window!

“I really enjoyed the week with Amnesty, and I feel that I learned a lot. We took part in a human rights protest outside the GPO, asking people to sign petitions. The response was mixed: some people came up and asked what the protest was about, another man got everyone he knew to sign the petition, and others would put their heads down and walk faster to try and get away. It’s understandable that people don’t want to be delayed, and I probably would have done the same myself. But now I’ll make more of an effort to stop.

“I also took part in research, looking up different topics on the internet, and I joined the Amnesty Action Centre. The fifth-year students in my school are currently setting up an Amnesty group, and I’ll definitely join. I’m particularly interested in the topic of women’s rights: one in every three women worldwide has been abused, forced into sex or beaten.

“I’m really enjoying transition year. It’s a break from the usual studying, and with different modules every six weeks, I get to choose what I want to do. My favourite topic so far has been a history studies module on the Holocaust. It was much more interactive than classes normally are. Today we’re having a dance workshop, while over the next six weeks, I’ll be taking on architecture, music and legal studies modules.”