Everything from obesity to suicide tackled

HOMELESSNESS, HUMAN trafficking, obesity, care of the elderly, teenage suicide, cystic fibrosis, dyslexia, drug abuse and pressure on teenage girls to be thin were among the diverse issues tackled at the Young Social Innovators (YSI) “Speak Out” in Dublin yesterday.

A group from Loreto College, Mullingar, presented a drama on the pressure on young people to be thin, titled The Perfect Image, in which three young women are judged in a modelling contest. The first two are dismissed, first for being too fat and then not attractive enough. The third girl, dressed as a skeleton, is praised loudly and told she “really could be Ireland’s next top model”.

Malessa Tierney (15), acting as compere to the contest, told the audience 97 per cent of people wished they could change their physical appearance. “Do we really want to live in a society that does this to people?” she asked.

She said her group chose this issue because they felt it affected “nearly everyone our age”. “It affects boys too, but girls more so feel the pressure in the media to be a certain image. There’s the pressure to be size zero and be perfect in everything.”

Paul White (16) and Aidan Brogan (15) from St Joseph’s Secondary School in Rush, Co Dublin, presented a project on poverty in Kibera, the largest slum in Kenya, titled Hungry For Justice. They described the lack of clean water, lack of electricity, the shacks and the starvation.

“We felt it was a really necessary issue,” said Mr White. The group also raised money for a family living in the slum.

Asked what they thought about the YSI programme both said it was “very good”. “It gives young people a chance to speak about things they are concerned about,” said Mr Brogan.

Two schools explored teenage suicide. Emma Gaynor (16) and Katie Dunne (16) from Cross and Passion College, Kilcullen, Co Kildare, said it was an issue many felt strongly about. “It’s a topic people wanted to research because one or two in the class had distant relatives or friends who had committed suicide.”

Sorcha Nolan (16), Shauna Whelan (16) and Eve O’Brien (16) of Dominican College, Griffith Avenue, Dublin, were part of a group that also looked at suicide, and said there were some in the class who knew people who had taken their own lives. “It was useful too. In the research we found out a lot about the support organisations like Aware and the Samaritans,” said Ms Nolan.

A group from St Joseph’s Senior School in Rochfortbridge, Co Westmeath, presented their drama Reality Bites on sexually transmitted infections (STIs) among teenagers. In it a glamorous young girl is chatted up by a lad in a disco and the two leave to have sex. She asked him whether he has a condom and he answered: “What’s the worst that could happen?”

About six others then gathered around the couple, each representing an STI, and the narrator said: “Little did you know pregnancy is not the worst that could happen.” She said that in a survey carried out among senior students in the school, 12 per cent didn’t know what chlamydia was, three per cent didn’t know what gonorrhoea was and there was lack of knowledge about STIs in general in schools. She told the audience they wanted to have information on STIs available for senior students in St Joseph’s, “because this is a very important issue to our health”.

Drogheda Grammar School examined the issue of rape, Our Lady’s School Terenure, Dublin, looked at celebrity culture and teenagers, while St Aidan’s CBS in Whitehall, Dublin, explored censorship in music.