A GROUP of eight transition year students from Killarney Community College is raising awareness of false perceptions of four conditions – autism, ADHD, dyslexia and dyspraxia – and the lack of education around the conditions due to a lack of accessible resources and supporting communities.
It is part of the Young Social Innovators initiative which has inspired young people from all over Ireland to focus on a social issue of their choice to try to make a change and fight for what they believe in.
The students involved – calling their project the Connected Four – are Luke O’Sullivan, Rachel Griffin, Lulu Healy, Amy O’Donoghue, Eva Ryan Lynch, Keelyn O’Leary, Lauren Fleming and Jack O’Connell.
“The reason we chose this issue is we all know someone who has been diagnosed with one or more of these conditions,” said Luke O’Sullivan.
“Most of the members in our YSI group have recognised the flaws in our society whereas, from the inside looking out, I can confirm experience of misunderstanding and the overall lack of education in our community,” he added.
The Killarney group believes that change is needed not just because there isn’t enough information on the conditions but because there’s so much stigma involved.
Rachel Griffin remarked: “We must make people aware of the challenges people face. If we can educate people on how to assist people with these conditions and how the people themselves can cope, it is a step in the right direction”.
She added: “Educating people will help stop the prejudice and stereotypes as people will have the right information. Communities will become more accepting and helpful of others around them and it will become normal to have a mixed variety in our society without them being looked at differently”.
On Wednesday, Luke, Rachel and Eva had the opportunity to represent the group and pitch their project to a panel of business and community people as part of the Young Social Innovators Dragon’s Den project via Zoom.
The Dragons on the day were Paul Kelly from Unilever, Tim Bulter from Virgin Media and Mary Roche from Tusla and the students pitched their project and their idea of creating a children’s book of stories around the four conditions to educate other children and to break down prejudice before it can begin.
The students pitched their project and their idea of creating a children’s book of stories around the four conditions to educate other children and to break down prejudice before it can begin.
The Killarney Community College students received a cheque of €500 from the Dragons to invest in their project and they have also been offered mentoring from Paul Kelly, marketing developer of Unilever, to guide them in the right direction with their book.
The Connected Four from Killarney Community College was the only school in Kerry to pitch to the Dragons this year and one of just 10 projects in Munster.
They have very active social media accounts, including Instagram, Facebook and TikTok, that are highlighting facts, myths, statistics, their online survey results and the intense research the group have completed.
These social media options are reaching a wide audience and helping to spread their message nationally and globally and a YouTube channel is also being set up by the group to share people’s experiences and knowledge from interviews they are currently doing online.
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