Slam Poetry Workshop

On Thursday 19th May, we had a slam poetry workshop with Stephen Murray. The course was really good and interesting. Stephen taught us a new way to write poetry by writing stuff that meant something to us. He got us to write a short poem about what we would do if we met someone we hated. The girls had to write what they would want said to them by someone they liked and the boys had to write their best chat up line. Of wasd hilarious listening to the chat up lines. We then were asked by Stephen to write a poem about something related to us after listening to two poignant poems. We placed them on http://www.inspireland.ie and I worked with Caroline on our poem. I really enjoyed the classes and thought that Stephen really made poetry interesting.

Disability Talk

Donegal Centre for Independent Living

On Friday, 4th March, Richard Alcorn, a man from the Donegal Centre for Independent Living came to talk to us about disabilities. He began by introducing himself and explaining how he came to need a wheelchair. He then showed us a powerpoint presentation which went through all the terms that are acceptable to be used around a disabled person. He then went through all the ways to make wheelchair users comfortable; not overcrowding them, going to eye level when talking for a long period of time to them and not making them feel like they are any different from non- disabled people. It was a really interesting talk and went over all the aims of the Donegal Centre for Independent Living and how it hopes that all disabled people can live comfortably and have the facilities and treatment that they deserve as well as people respecting them.

Careers talk

On Thursday 4th February, we had a talk about how to present ourselves properly when searching for a job. Sean Mc Gee, who used to go to school in Ballyshannon, told us how to fill out our CV properly, told us about the importance of a job and how careers have progressed as well as how to present yourself properly in an interview. He showed us how we need a career to earn money, and showed us how jobs have changed from people having the same job for almost all their lives to trying out several different careers. He also told us about the best way to make our CV’s presentable by trying to print them on the best paper, tailoring the CV to suit the job you are applying for and to be honest in your CV. Sean told us that before we apply for a job, we have to research it by asking someone who does that job to describe it in detail for you. He finally told us about presenting yourself properly by waiting until you had been asked to sit before sitting, sitting up straight but slightly leaned towards the interviewer and maintaining as much eye contact as possible without staring to show an interest. I thought that this talk was really interesting as it taught me how to act properly in an interview as well as teaching me a bit about human body language, like when people are trying to think of something quickly, they tend to look up to the left hand corner. 

Road Safety Talk

On Thursday, 14th January, we had a talk about road safety. Micháel, the speaker, showed us how to put our seat belt on properly; Over the shoulder and across the chest, and that the driver of the car should be around 11 inches from the steering wheel. He also told us that the head support has to be level with your head so that you will not break your neck if the car crashes. He gave us a synopsis of the first second of a car crashing into a solid wall at 55mph. It showed that if you do not wear your seat belt, ankles will break and you will be thrown around at 55mph. He also gave us case studys of people who had been involved in crashes. There was one person, Sean, who had been driving three friends to the same college for two years. Sean drove them home one evening after they had been to a party and he had drank at it. He crashed the car and was left paralysed yet only one of his friends visited him. Micháel, who knew Sean told us that the only person in charge of our fate was ourselves and that if you do not trust someone to drive you home or if you know that they have been drinking, do not get into the car with them. This was a good talk as he gave us lots of examples of accidents and driving safely as well as the ways to minimise damage to yourselves or others in an accident.

First Aid Aware

On Friday, 18th December, we had our second part of the first aid course. For my group this meant doing the first aid part of the course rather than learning CPR. Niall was the first instructor we had. He talked to us about handling a patient who is unconscious and the signs of what to do. We learned the ABCD steps; check airways, check breathing, check circulation and disability. Disibility meant checking the response of the patient. There were four stages of response: being alert, responding to voice responding to pain and being unresponsive. If the patient was unresponsive you had to get someone to call the ambulance. We then had to examine the person and evaluate them for injuries. If there was a wound, you had to plug it. We then learned how to handle a laceration by elevating the arm and putting a bandage and sling on.

Afterwards, we talked to Liam who was telling us how to deal with broken or fractured bones. He taught us the two types of arm sling: the arm sling and the elevated sling. He also showed us how to handle a fractured leg so that you could move the patient. Roisin acted the patient and her legs had to be tied together and her body lifted on a blanket.

The final paramedic talking to us was Cathal and he was talking to us about dealing with respiratory problems. He taught us the two types of choking; partial and full and that with partial you should not pat the person on the back. We then were shown the Heimlich maneuver and the ration that we should use it at. We were also shown how to deal with someone having an asthma attack and a stroke. The talk was very interesting and it will be great for the future.

First Aid Course

On Friday, 11th December, we had the first half of our first aid course. The group was split in half first and I was put into the group that did the cpr course. Mark, Laura and two other instructors were instructing us. We watched a video that instructed and then put into practice what we had learned on plastic dolls. We also learned how to breathe properly by watching the chest rise, with and without a mask. We learned how to do CPR on an adult by doing 30 compressions for every two breaths given. That has to be done for around five rounds before you have to swap with someone else if there is someone available. We then learned how to use the AEDs (defibrillators) on an adult and then a child. We also learned how to resuscitate a baby as well as prevent a baby from choking. The course only lasted for the morning but it was really interesting and there was a lot of information packed into the morning and I found it really informative and helpful.   

Social Awareness talk

On Friday, 4th December, three students from Sligo IT visited to give us a talk aout social awareness and how people are perceived by their stereotype. They talked to us about racism and discrimination against a religion or a culture. One of the speakers told us about the high percentage of racism in Ireland, yet the amount of people who reported cases of racism were very low as people felt too afraid or upset or they didn’t feel it was important enough for the Gardai. She also gave us a few case studies where people were let away with crimes or the crimes were not reported well because race and colour was involved. Another of the speakers talked to us about religion and how we often discriminate against someone or mock their religion because we don’t understand their customs or are afraid of them. He also gave us examples of when this occurs. The final speaker talked to us about things like the traveller community and our attitude to things that we do not understand or believe in. She gave us an exercise where we were split into groups of only children, eldest children, youngest children and middle children. We had to, in our groups, describe what we thought described one of the other groups. This showed as an example of discrimination as we all thought of the stereotype for that person and when some people were offended or amused by what people had said about them, we saw how much stereotyping and discriminating against a group of people could hurt feelings. It was an interesting day as we all saw how easy it is to be racist or discriminate against someone.

Gaisce awards

On 4th November, Ms Conroy talked to us about the Gaisce awards and what we had to do to get involved in the awards. There are four aspects to the award; community care, learning a skill, doing a sports activity and having two days and one night away from home doing 25 kilometres of walking and 100 kilometres of cycling. There are three options; the bronze, silver and gold awards. The bronze award requires 26 weeks of doing the skills with thirteen weeks of each activity and a further 13 weeks of your favourite activity. I want to do the awards as it sounds like good fun and it will be good to add to my CV.

Saint Vincent de Paul talk

On Thursday 22nd October, Sharon Tuohy from Saint Vincent de Paul visited to talk to us about the history of the organisation and about what we could do for our SVP project. The society of Saint Vincent de Paul was set up in 1834 by Frederic Ozanam when he was a student.He disliked the poverty he saw around him so set up the society to deal with the problem along with a group of his friends.

Frederic Ozanam

The SVP was founded in Ireland in 1884 and helps people dealing with poverty, mental health issues and disabilities. Sharon Tuohy told us about what projects we could do. We are hoping to decorate the autism unit, do paired reading with the autism unit, work with the IWA doing wheelchair basketball and raise awareness to the poor street conditions in Ballyshannon for wheelchair users. We also hope to have a Christmas party for the students of St Cecilias at Cregg House. The talk gave a good insight into the work of the SVP and also helped us to work out what we could do to raise awareness for people with disabilities and how life can be made easier for them.

Road Safety talk

On the 14th October, we went to The Aura in Letterkenny to watch a presentation about road safety and what happens during and after an accident. We were told about an accident involving Sean and Sinead and about the accident from different people’s perspective. Sinead was thrown out the car as she was not wearing her seat belt and died and Sean was left paralysed and brain damaged. The garda on duty was the first to tell us about what he saw when he arrived on the scene, then the paramedic spoke next. The firefighter that had to cut Sean out of the car then spoke about his experiences followed by the doctor at the hospital that treated him. We then heard from people who had been affected by a fatal accident; the mother of a young girl that died in a car crash along with another girl and a man that had been nearly paralysed and was only just regaining the use of his legs ten years after his accident. These stories were more poignant as we saw how the accidents affected a family and a person’s lifestyle. We were shown figures of how over 2,000 people died as a result of a car crash in the past ten years. I learned from this talk that young male drivers are more responsible for road accidents than any other group and that I should not let anyone that I don’t think respects my safety drive me. This was a good talk for raising awareness as you heard the shocking story of a road accident and it’s repercussions.