Cavan tackles Europe head on

Jack Hayden A group of nine Transition Year students from St Patrick's College, Cavan, recently attended the Ulster/Connaught session of the European Youth Parliament in Monaghan. It was a great success with students leaving with some valuable knowledge and experience regarding current and political affairs. It gave students the opportunity to get involved in committee work, debating and public speaking. It was all very well organised with many different activities and team-building exercises. Founded in 1987, the European Youth Parliament (EYP) is a truly unique organisation reaching out to young people across Europe and encouraging them to have their say on the future of their continent. This was the first time that a session was held in Ulster. The mission of EYP Ireland is to foster interest amongst young people in these issues. They seek to empower youth to question issues and come up with innovative solutions to global problems, while emphasising cooperation and respect. Day one Arriving on Friday at 4pm, students assembled into the main hall of Macartan's College. Numerous team-building and bonding exercises followed which allowed the group of 110 students to become familiar with each other. Students were then divided into the committees where they began work on such topics as the economic downturn, terrorist threats, phone hacking, energy waste and production, famine, current food production methods, structure of governments and sovereignty of nations. Day two Day two started with the European anthem followed by numerous speeches. For the rest of the day students worked eagerly in their committees identifying the issues and attempting to come up with structured resolutions. Each student was assigned a role within their committee. A youth disco on the Saturday night brought an end to a most enjoyable day. Day three Day three saw all committees finalising their work and presenting to the rest of the delegation. At the end of each presentation there was a vote to decide if the resolution to each issue was worthy and good enough for 'government' to pass. There was an open debate about all of the key issues and all students were delighted to get fully involved. The closing ceremony followed which was a long ceremony consisting of a number of speeches with the EYP President giving a few inspiring words about 'never giving up'. The European anthem then followed and the session was brought to a close by singing "Imagine" by John Lennon. All St Pat's students felt it was a great experience and were delighted to be part of the delegation for the weekend. for more news from St Pat's as part of the 'My School' competition, see this week's Anglo-Celt.