Video Competition
With thanks to the Athlone drug awareness group, and our transition year co-ordinater, we had the chance to make a short video on the effects of drugs on young people. This competition gave us a great opportunity to make our peers and others more aware of the dangers faced by all when dealing with drugs, especially alcohol which is one of the most commonly abused drugs of our age group.
As transition year students coming to the end of our year it really opened our eyes to the culture of alcohol and drugs amongst young people. We had the privilege in transition year to meet with multiple speakers one of whom had been a past drug abuser. He told us his story and spoke to us about the dangers and consequence of drug abuse opening our eyes to the far reaching life long effects of this abuse.
We heard about the video competition held by the Athlone drug awareness group who have been working in this region for the past twenty years and as transition year students we decided to enter. We decided to create a video based on insight into the culture of alcohol amongst the young. We chose alcohol as the drug of choice because of its availability, its affordability and its wide spread abuse. The aim of our video was to show what can really happen and as young people ourselves it will speak to other teenagers. In making our video we held a survey among transition year students in Our Lady’s Bower and the Marist College In the survey one of the questions asked was “have you been under the influence of alcohol in the past month?”. The statistic showed that 27% of students replied yes to this question. This statistic shocked us greatly and encouraged us further to go ahead of the video.
Overall we had a great time taking part in the competition and we really valued the opportunity, which thought us things hopefully we will keep with us all through school, college and life. Once again we would like to thank the Athlone drug awareness group, we were honoured to receive first prize and as a group of former transition year students we would recommend all schools to take part and support their local drug awareness group who do amazing work.
By Saoirse O’Dwyer, Ally Marren , Gillian Murray, Aoife O’Looney , Hazel O’ Loughlin.
