Mags Gargan
Mags Gargan visits a Dublin school which is the top fundraiser for Trócaire in Ireland
This academic year St Mac Dara’s Community College in Dublin’s Templeogue celebrated their 25th year of supporting Trócaire and raising over €350,000 for the overseas development agency. The school is also an active promoter of development education, and recently signed up to the World Wise Global Schools programme operated by Irish Aid.
This year alone the school raised an impressive €25,400 and the key drivers of the school’s fundraising work is Irish teacher, Alan Curran and English and History teacher and former pupil, Shona Burke.
The Trócaire Committee in MacDara’s is made up of a team of fifth year students who organise fundraising events throughout the year which involve each school year in different ways.
“First years start with a ‘Give it up for Trócaire’ campaign, so it’s usually fasting or they give up electronic devices, like their mobile phone for 24 hours,” Shona says.
“Or they have 24 hours of silence,” Alan explains. “The second years have a fun day so they raise a certain amount of money and they get a fun afternoon off from academic work. And then third years get to throw various water bombs at teachers.
Lenten project
“The fifth years take part in a cycling event in a local shopping centre. They cycle the distance to wherever the Trócaire Lenten project is and people passing through the shopping centre will donate.
“We don’t ask sixth years to do anything anymore as they are too busy, but they would have had an opportunity through first year all the way up to fifth year to contribute, and, in fairness, the vast majority of them do.”
José Boyd says he joined the Trócaire committee because he “just wanted to help”. “Each year we did something different for Trócaire and this year I just wanted to do a little bit more.”
Robin Upton says the best thing about being part of the committee is organising the events through the year. “We had third years the other day water bombing the teachers. That was hilarious.
“For every fiver that they raise, they can throw different things at the teachers. So there was flower, fizzy drinks, water and milk. So whoever’s raised money, they get to throw different things at the teachers and they have to stand there and take it.”
“Different year groups do different things. That’s what makes it exciting,” says Katie Hayes Kelly. “You start at first year and then you’re going up to sixth year and you’ve gone through all the stages. So it’s not the same. It makes it more fun.”
Alan says the vast majority of staff is involved in the fundraising one way or another. “Mostly just facilitating what goes on, but there’s a lot of goodwill from the staff and especially from the parents’ association and our principal, Paul Kingston. And it’s well regarded within the community as well.”
The new World Wise Global Schools committee is focused on raising awareness of development issues and this year they concentrated on fair trade.
“That committee is made of students from first year all the way up to sixth year, and they come up with ideas to for us to promote during each academic year,” Alan says. “So they’ll discuss the ideas they want to promote and how they’ll promote them, so that even though Trócaire is the centre of attention during Lent, at various stages during the year students are aware of other developmental issues, depending on what we decide to do.”
Activity
José explains that one activity this year which really had an impact on students was a workshop on fair trade where the students had to see life through the eyes of a banana farmer.
“You’re a banana farmer and if it wasn’t fair trade, you only got a few cent per banana but if it was, you got more money and had more time and you weren’t under stress. We had five minutes but it covered a year in the life of a farmer and you’d see your bananas grow and be exported and it showed the things you have to pay for like education or if there was a hurricane or you needed to get a new tractor. There were all these steps you had to go through, and it showed how better it is to buy fair trade stuff, because if they get a fairer deal, they get more money. We only had five minutes, but it was crazy just to see it on a small scale and how difficult it was,” he says.
“I think that exercise mostly opened my eyes,” Roisin O’Brien agrees. “Five minutes into someone else’s completely different world. It was crazy.”
Fair trade shop
The committee also operated a fair trade shop on a Friday to raise awareness and encourage students to look out for fair trade products.
“It’s not about making money or even selling the products, it’s just about getting the culture out there, to be aware of it when you’re in shops and supermarket, that we do have choices,” Alan says. “Fair trade is embedded in the school now, but next year we’re going to work on highlighting the refugee crisis. That was the topic chosen by the students and we already have a plan in place for that.”