Laois student wins trip to European Parliament

A student from Portlaoise College has won a trip to the European Parliament in Strasburg following his participation in the Graduate.ie Online Citizenship Programme. 

The Midland Regional Drug & Alcohol Task Force held a prize giving ceremony on Monday, April 15 in the Sheraton Hotel, Athlone and invited the winning student Sean Walsh to attend along with family members and Portlaoise College staff.  

The Graduate.ie programme is an online citizenship and democracy programme for second level students in Ireland. It is a government and EU funded programme and has been in operation since 2001.

The MRDATF rolled out this initiative in partnership with fifteen Secondary schools across the counties of Laois, Longford, Westmeath, and Offaly with transition year students invited to participate.  

The programme commenced in September 2023 and lasted for a total of 20 weeks.  During this period a total of 1099 Transition Year students registered to take part in the programme and of these an average of 668 students
took part in the programme on a weekly basis.  

Each week for 20 weeks of the academic year students’ logged onto www.graduate.ie where they had to answer a number of questions on a range of issues to include drugs and alcohol, health and safety, environmental awareness and climate action, democracy and participation, financial literacy, EU affairs, consumer protection, tourism and regional development.

Students were then directed by hyperlinks to the relevant sponsors’ website where they researched the correct answer and then submitted their answers to Graduate.ie.  Computer randomly selected weekly winners from all the correct entries.  

By winning the overall prize which was sponsored by the MRDATF Sean will  attend a 3-day educational trip to Strasbourg in November and spend one full day at the European Parliament where he will have the opportunity to take part in a youth parliament (Euroscola) with students from other EU member states.
 
During his stay he will also be visiting other places of educational interest around the city of Strasbourg and surrounding areas.

In attendance at the event and presenting the prizes to the winning students was Joe Potter, Chairperson MRDATF. 

Speaking at the event Joe said, “I am delighted to be here today presenting the winning students with their prizes. This is such a worthwhile initiative allowing the participants to develop active citizenship, an understanding of the workings of democracy and intercultural understanding and awareness. I would like to acknowledge the Midland Regional Drug and Alcohol Task Force for sponsoring the prizes and all the schools who participated in the Graduate.ie 2023, this was a great opportunity to research and learn more about the dangers associated with drug and alcohol misuse”.

Speaking at the event Antoinette Kinsella, Co-ordinator MRDATF said, “the MRDATF were very happy to support the roll out of the Graduate.ie initiative across the midlands area. The uptake and participation received from schools who took part in the initiative was very encouraging and I would like to thank all the students and teachers for their support. While taking part in the weekly quiz students had a fantastic opportunity to learn about various organisations and important topics. It is hoped that this initiative will assist in developing life skills such as preparing for the world of work, teamwork, collaboration and valuable insights into the vocational dimensions of life after school.  I am sure the winning candidate will also appreciate having the opportunity to experience how the European Parliament works by partaking in the Euroscola Youth Parliament and having the opportunity to pose a question in the European parliament”.

The MRDATF will be commencing the roll out of this initiative again to commence in September 2024 and it looks forward to again engaging with all Secondary Schools across the midlands region to support the roll
out.