Transitions Times: If you're looking to test yourself outside school, whether by helping the elderly or going on a survival course, the President's Award could be ideal. Gráinne Faller reports

Most teenagers are probably sick of hearing how rude, inconsiderate, apathetic and generally unpleasant they are. Barely a week seems to go by without a tirade in the media about the younger generation's lack of respect, underage drinking and antisocial behaviour. The "let's ban the hoodie because the UK government did" campaign has brought the whole thing to a new level of silliness.

Unfortunately, it is very easy to focus on teenagers' misdeeds. If journalists want to write about youth crime, all they have to do is pop down to the Children's Court and watch a case. If they want to see how many teenagers take a drink before their 18th birthdays, they need only go out on Junior Cert results night. They can back up what they see by consulting numerous surveys and reports.

Good deeds, on the other hand, are rarely studied. Community work and extra-curricular achievement get little recognition, which is a shame. There is a way to do such work, however - and to have something to show for it at the end.

The President's Award, otherwise known as Gaisce, has been running for years with great success. Hundreds of young people take part each year, many starting the process in transition year. It gives recognition to music, sport, community work and more, and, if you complete it, a Gaisce award doesn't look half bad on your CV. But it can also be more than that, whether it is long- distance walks, trips to far-flung places or competition in international athletics. For some people, the President's Award can be the start of something very big.

Not that Neale Whelehan, a student at CBS Swords, in north Co Dublin, had any idea of what was in store at the beginning. "I just did Gaisce because everyone else was signing up for it," he says. The award is made up of four sections - skill, community, physical and venture - and participants have to complete a certain number of hours on each section in order to earn a bronze, silver or gold award, depending on which they entered for.

During transition year, Neale learned sign language and taught PE at a local primary school for the skill and community sections. He decided to take up athletics for the physical part of the challenge. "I had never done it before," he says. "I did sprinting and the triple jump."

Despite being a newcomer, Neale found he had an aptitude for the triple jump and made it on to the Irish team. He is now in training for an international championship in Scotland.

"Most of the time the students are doing a lot of this stuff anyway," says Deirdre Coyle, who co-ordinates the Gaisce challenge at Monkstown CBS, in south Co Dublin. Students from the school started participating in the President's Award scheme four years ago, originally with just two entrants. Now it has become a part of transition year at the school. This year about 40 students are going for their bronze award. Coyle says: "It gives students some recognition for their extracurricular activities, but it also pushes them . . . There's always at least one activity that they won't have done before."

Sometimes it's more than one. Brendan Moore, a student of Coyle's, completed his bronze award in transition year, went on to do his silver and is now in the middle of earning his gold award. He has done a huge amount over the years. At the moment he is running every lunchtime, for the physical section of the challenge; for his community and skills modules he is helping people to learn Irish in his local cumann, and he sings in his parish choir.

The venture part of the award is probably the most time-consuming aspect for Moore, as he is currently organising a six-day sponsored walk from Wexford to Dublin. Last year a fellow student, Oran Cowan, organised and completed the walk as part of his own gold-award venture. It was a huge success, raising more than €14,000 for charity.

Moore hopes to equal that. "I did three days of the walk last year for my silver award," he says. "You'd get a stitch the odd time, and your legs would get really tired, but it was great craic." This time he is hoping to walk for all six days, beginning on February 15th.

The awards are flexible, however. While Moore has done charity work in Zambia and walked long distances for his venture activity, and Whelehan completed an army survival course in the Wicklow Mountains for his, Conor Tobin of Malahide Community School, in north Co Dublin, missed his school's walking trip. "I couldn't go on the venture bit, so I thought that I'd missed out on the chance to complete it," he says. Luckily, his active life outside school came to his rescue. "I was entering the Young Scientists exhibition separately, and my teacher suggested that I could use that for the venture bit." He was the only one in his year to do so, but it was accepted, and he got his bronze award.

Like the other participants, Conor is very positive about the experience. "For the community part I worked in a nursing home . . . That's something I never would have done otherwise," he says. "We weren't doing anything important, just talking to the residents and helping in the kitchen, but they really enjoyed seeing us."

"It's a year where students have to go out and hustle," says Robbie Harrold, who takes care of the Gaisce participants at Malahide Community School. "What I feel is that many students do great work in the community, but they get no recognition for it. Some of them might even get sneered at, but they keep at it . . . You can put a Gaisce award on your CV, and you can keep it there until you're 60 and beyond . . . There may be cynics out there, but they won't be getting a President's Award."

It does change you, according to Brendan Moore. "It's hard to explain," he says. "I can feel the change. I'm more persistent, I suppose, and more confident. If you treat it like a chore it becomes a chore. The more you put into Gaisce, the more you get out of it."

For more information, see www.p-award.net

How Gaisce works

The President's Award, or Gaisce, is based on challenges you set yourself. You have to agree the challenge with your leader. It is completely individual, in that you compete with nobody but yourself.

The awards are split into three categories: gold, silver and bronze. Each has four challenge areas: community, skill, physical and venture.

The difference between gold, silver and bronze awards is simply the time you are required to spend on each of the challenge areas. A bronze award requires six months; a gold award needs at least 18.

The skill can be anything from music or computers to a language. Community work can be a first-aid course, teaching or working in a shelter or nursing home, for example. The physical challenge involves activity of some sort: team sports or walking, perhaps. The venture is generally an overnight challenge - often a hike or a cycle - but it can involve other things, too.

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