Thank you to Hugh Bergin from Self Help Africa who gave two informative workshops to the TY students as part of their GCE. Students learned more about what the Sustainable Development Goals are, more about gender equality and also the area of trade justice globally.
Students enjoyed making their annual Christmas Yule Logs in Home Economics and this year 6th year student Julia Wolkowyska also shared with us how to make traditional Polish biscuits called Pierniki. How wonderful it is for us to learn about and appreciate students cultural food traditions.
In our efforts to reduce fast fashion in school, 1st year Home Economics students upcycled old jumpers from home into Christmas themed ones. Well done to all students on their creativity and sustainable efforts in making them.
As an action project, students from the social justice club participated in two lunchtime webinars with Amnesty Ireland where they learned more about the Write for Rights campaign that happens each year. From these webinars students learned more in-depth information about two of Amnesty’s cases – about Rung from Thailand and Mikita from Belarus. Hearing the stories about how their human rights are being affected empowered students to engage in signing petitions and writing letters to engage with the stories and cases that they heard about. Some of Ms Reynolds English classes and Ms Cooney’s Home Economics classes also got involved in the campaign.
As part of our GCE and Green Schools work in school Mr Mullen’s 3rd year Geography class learned more about the importance for supporting Fairtrade Farmers and Producers. They carried out some investigative work around cost comparisons on a variety of products available in our local shop and students also got to enjoy sampling these products too.
Tomatoes and potatoes that were grown in the school polytunnel along with homegrown fruits and vegetables kindly gifted to the Home Economics Department from various teachers all resulted in lots of delicious products for students and staff to enjoy.
A great opportunity for students to see a range of preservation techniques in action in the classroom – crab apple jelly, beetroot relish, shatta – a Palestinian condiment made from red chilli’s, tomato sauce and salsa were on the menu. Thanks Mr Cunnane for the beetroot, Ms Colum for the crab apples and Ms Parke for the homegrown chillies.
At Ballinamore CS, we light a candle in memory of teh 27 people who needlessly died in the English Channel last month. These people were seeking refuge and had no safe route. Solidarity knows no borders.
Well done to the TY students and staff who completed their virtual cycle from Ballinamore to Castlebar raising a total of €345 for Cycle Against Suicide 
. A great event, organised entirely by the TY students under the guidance of Mr Kane.
