These students give me hope for the future

I’ve been making a six-part climate action community TV series for a lot longer than planned, due to the realities of school timetables, but it’s finally ‘in the can’, thanks to a wonderful transition year teacher, in an inspirational school and 12 very wonderful young people.

When Coimisiún na Meán, the Irish media commission, formerly the BAI, gave me the ‘green light’ to make ‘The Climate Challenge’ – six half hours that would chart the journey of four teams of students as they learned about the climate crisis and then dreamed up four social media campaigns to promote, among their peers, sustainable fashion, sustainable foods, sustainable homes and sustainable lifestyles – I didn’t foresee any problems. Two schools that, for various reasons, didn’t work out later, it was with a great degree of anxiety that we started rolling cameras on a dozen volunteer transition year students from St Oliver’s Community College in Drogheda. Their teacher, the awe-inspiring Jennifer Winters, was the personification of calm. I, after my two false starts, was a bag of nerves, as we bussed the young people from their school – Ireland’s largest – to The Rediscovery Centre in Ballymun. The centre is Ireland’s national centre for the circular economy, and the education team there were phenomenal. After a day of workshops, the students were informed, inspired and ready to go. Over the following weeks, we charted their journey as they split into teams and, from scratch, created social media clips to inspire climate action among their peers. Each team had a mentor – an expert in the area that the team was focussing on. The Sustainable Fashion team were visited by, social entrepreneur Jennifer Thornton, of Offset Fashion – an online store selling second hand designer pieces – and she spent time discussing ideas with them. The Sustainable Food team had Visham Sumputh – the uber-talented head chef of the award winning Etto restaurant – to guide them. Interiors architect and author, Natasha Rocca Devine was on hand to inspire the Sustainable Homes team, while Anne McCartney Cutbill – the founder and proprietor of sustainability store Cult Zero stepped up for the Sustainable Lifestyles team.

Mentors, left to right, Natasha Rocca Devine, Anne McCartney Cutbill, Visham Sumputh and Jennifer Thornton, on the red carpet at the awards evening in St Oliver’s Community College, Drogheda.

It all came to a climax a few days ago on an awards evening that saw the canteen of St Oliver’s Community College transformed into a red carpet venue under the creative genius of teacher Ronan McQuillan. The students turned up dressed for the occasion with family and friends and walked the red carpet, pausing to be “paparazzi’ed” and interviewed. The four clips were shown as part of a video (below) that gave an overview of what the students had experienced. The evening ended with awards for all of the students, and a hamper of sustainable products to help their eco journey to continue.

Now it’s time to edit it all together! You can expect to see ‘The Climate Challenge ‘ on DCTV in the new year. You can follow the project on https:theclimatechallenge.eu