Project Showcase at the Leargas Forum

 

imageOne of the regular highlights of the Leargas Forum is the Project Showcase. This year, 14 projects in all were presented on work in progress or recently completed. These included some very detailed displays and demos.
Below is a quick walk-through of this part of the event. The Leargas project showcase gave a good insight into how groups and communities benefit from European supports. Here is a flavour of some of the projects showcasing on the day:

What’s Cooking in Europe?

This group from Our Lady of Fatima school in Wexford has an exciting cookbook of tradititional receipes from a number of European countries. The cookbook is the result of their Erasmus Plus partnership with France, Italy, Germany and Turkey and is planned to help everyone read the book with pictures and simple clear instructions. A great multicultural idea! Bon Appétit Our Lady Of Fatima!

Continuing on the food theme…..

Blanchardstown Common Training Centre: Fight the Beast Don’t Become Obese

The Blanchardstown Common Training Centre were demonstrating some of the recipes from their cookbook ‘Fight the beast, don’t become obese’ . In their project they worked in partnership with groups from Latvia and Malta. Their project has two aims -Firstly, to help young people understand food labels and nutritional value of food and secondly to develop cooking skills using fresh, local healthy ingredients…. Happy cooking everyone !

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And now to the great outdoors…..

Low Tech, High Activity

Involve Youth set up this Youth Exchange project which aimed to look at how reliant we are on our phones, technology and social media. They formed a partnership with a group in Italy and focused on building social skills through outdoor activities. A lot of fun was had by everyone on the project and it was an opportunity to meet others and make new friends.

The student voice …

National Youth Council : #Young Voices

The National Youth Council told us all about the work they are doing with young people to give young people a voice in making Europe more inclusive and how to encourage young people to connect with each other to promote this inclusion. The NYC are working with countries across Europe for this project and recently held a think-in for young people in Dublin.

Supporting education in and out of school…..

EDGE: Limerick Clare ETB

The EDGE project is an Erasmus+ strategic partnership comprising of adult and further education providers in Ireland, Austria, Portugal, Greece and Wales. The EDGE Project aims to develop innovative approaches (career guidance, learner engagement strategies, self-evaluation tools, e-learning resources) in the provision of employability skills development.

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And something from Leargas themselves…

EURODESK- for all things European 

http://www.eurodesk.ie/ is run by Leargas to provide free information on opportunities-such as travelling, working, studying and volunteering in Europe–for young people aged 13 – 30. You can check out any of the sections that you’re interested in (for example volunteering) but if there is information that you can’t find there, you can  get in contact with your local information point and they will help. Eurodesk is also part of a large network of European Eurodesk points, with over 1,200 offices throughout Europe, with headquarters in Brussels. You can check out the European-wide Eurodesk website: www.eurodesk.eu. Good to know!

 

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TED-type talks at the Leargas Forum 2016

Part of the Leargas forum this year was that five speakers gave talk about their lives and how they have contributed to the youth community. In this blog, we interviewed these five speakers and talked to them about how they have impacted youths across the world and what future goals they want to achieve.

The TED-talks followed a morning music session shown below.

Leargas

Kay McGabe is a youth coordinator for youth project and county needs. She has been in the business for about 10 years and primarily works with young people to support them.

Alex O’Mahoney is a teacher at the Holy Spirit Boys National School.

Haaris Sheikh is Chief Executive of Interesource Group (Ireland) Limited. He is on the Board of Directors of the Deaf Community Centre Limerick, and the Citizens Information Centre, Limerick. He is currently Adjunct Assistant Professor at the Centre for Deaf Studies, Trinity College Dublin.

Jim Sheehan works on a project called The Social and Health Education Project. One of the things he works on in the project is a community education program involving adults. His job is to support families with the help they need so they can be well and sustained throughout Ireland.

Blaithin Macken Smith has won the European Language Label and was awarded the Language Learner of The Year in 2016. She got into languages in the fifth year and was an exchange student to Japan. She learned Japenese, Spanish, Irish, English, and Russian for her Leaving Cert.

Lorcan, Elena, Will, Ezra, Ben and Millie
Youth Media Team

Interview with Jim Mullin

Jim Mullin has been the executive director of Leargas for 25 years. Jim is from Belfast and has worked as a Youth Worker in the National Youth Federation, as well as supporting staff at a regional level and volunteers in many organizations throughout Europe. At Leargas, he works to fund projects and organizations across the world with the resources and connections they need to help the education of youths throughout communities. In this interview, we talk with Jim about his life, as well as going into detail to find out the main goal of the Leargas forum.

Youth Media Team
Will and Ezra

Interview with Maurice Devlin at Léargas

Lorcan and Elena interviewed Maurice Devlin at Léargas 2016 in Dublin Castle. Maurice is a Jean Monnet Professor and Director of the Centre for Youth Research and Development in the Department of Applied Social Studies at NUI Maynooth. He spoke about the insight in young people through exchange and how the Erasmus programme has an influence in their future endeavors.

Lorcan and Elena

Youth Media Team

Interview with Professor Tom Crick

Caitlin and Lorcan interviewed Professor Tom Crick from Wales. Professor Crick was a member of a panel at Cracking the Code. He spoke about computer science in Wales and what we can learn from what they are doing there.


Caitlin and Lorcan,
Youth Media Team

Interview with Ilse White

Caitlin and Lorcan interviewed Ilse White from Google at Cracking the Code. Ilse spoke about what Google can do aid the Computer Science curriculum being brought into our education system. She also spoke about how computer science could aid climate change among other things.


Caitlin and Lorcan,
Youth Media Team

Interview with Martina Chapman

Martina Chapman, independent expert in Media Literacy and Digital Engagement, spoke to us at the Media Literacy Policy launch. Martina was involved in the development of the policy and shared some of the projects which informed it’s development. She also spoke about why it is important to have a Media Literacy Policy.

Lorcan, Amy and Roisin
Youth Media Team

Interview with Stephanie Comey

Stephanie Comey, from the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland, spoke to us at the Media Literacy Policy launch. She shared the objectives of the policy and also spoke about why it is important to have a Media Literacy Policy.

Roisin, Lorcan and Amy
Youth Media Team

Media Literacy in Action

At the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland Media Literacy Policy launch four speakers shared some examples of Media Literacy in Action. They all shared their thoughts with us on the importance of a Media Literacy Policy and why young people like ourselves need to be media literate.

Sheila DeCourcy, Cross Divisional Head of Children’s Content in RTE, shared some of the programmes that RTE have produced.

Emma Bowell, from Framework Films,  spoke about working with local communities to produce media content.

Irena Cvetkovic, from Craol, spoke about the importance of Community Radio for Media Literacy.

Simon Grehan shared the work that Webwise is doing with students, parents and teachers to educate them on Internet Safety.

Amy, Roisin and Lorcan
Youth Media Team