Ratoath club scoops Youth Citizenship Award for walking path

Developing a safe walking route in their village – in the form of a looped 4km walk complete with customised signs and lighting – won the Ratoath Foróige Club in Co Meath the 2014 Youth Citizenship Award today.

The Ratoath Foróige Club emerged the winner from eight teams that made it to the final round, fending off competition from projects including a charity rock concert, a film to promote better mental health, and a cystic fibrosis and organ-donation awareness project.

“I’m blown away by the range of different projects and the enthusiasm today,” said Minister for Youth Affairs James Reilly, who presented the awards. “Your involvement with your local communities and the projects you have chosen to undertake demonstrate that you promote citizenship and already have a good understanding of civic responsibility,” said Mr Reilly.

It was an extremely close fight for the top prize, said Denis O’Brien, volunteer development manager at Foróige and one of the judges. “The results were based on the enthusiasm of the team, the project’s impact on a large number of people, what the club members learned and their interactions with other groups.”

Noting the lack of safe walking routes in the neighbourhood, and wanting to promote physical fitness in the community, prompted the Ratoath club to raise €3,000 to order the customised signs and print a mapboard of the walk. The club members also sought local businesses to sponsor their project and consulted a local historian to mark out points of interest along the walk they named “Path to Health.”

Ratoath Foróige Club leader Roseina Murphy was “delighted” with winning the award this year. “The club is about the kids doing the work,” she said. “(The result) is great.”

Ciara Fennessy from the club said: “We wanted to create a lasting legacy in our village that could be enjoyed for years to come and I think we achieved that.”

The Foróige Youth Citizenship Award is in its 45th year and honours outstanding community involvement of young people who take part in the organisation’s youth citizenship programme. More than 30 clubs entered their projects for this year’s competition.

The perpetual award trophy was also designated the Michael B Cleary Youth Citizenship Trophy in memory of the former Foróige director who died in April 2012 after serving 36 years at the helm of the organisation.

Foróige is a youth organisation in Ireland that works with 54,000 young people aged 12 to 18 and more than 5,000 adult volunteers through a network of 600 youth clubs and cafes.