knock:14th september
on Wednesday the 14th of September our ty group went to knock for a young saint Vincent de paul conference.
we heard four speakers including, Fr peter mcverry, Joanne o riodan, john Lonergan and Dr Cara Augestenborg.
Fr Peter Mcverry is a social justice activist who spoke about homelessness. He told us that there are more homeless in Ireland now than any time since the famine. The hardest part of being homeless is knowing that nobody cares or seeing people walk by and not noticing them. I found this really upsetting and it has made me more aware.
Joanne o riordan was born with a rare condition called total amenia meaning she has no limbs. she is only one of seven people with this condition but she doesnt see herself as different, which I found very inspiring. she is working with trinity to make a robot to make her life easier. I found her talk the best talk because it really inspired me she was very funny which was a good end to the day.
Dr cara Augustenburg is a chairperson of friends of the earth Ireland and an environmental scientist who talks about climate change.
she spoke about the recent littering at electric picnic, she told us people leave tents after them which suprised me! One thing she said that shocked me was that there is BPA in water bottles that causes cancer. I felt quite bored during this talk as I don’t have an interest in the environment but her talk did make me more aware of the world around us!
John longeran was go beer or mountjoy prisom untill 2010. He spoke a little about this which I was disappointed about as I would of enjoyed it! He spoke more about the pride within a community.
Overall I really enjoyed this day as it was fun and great to mix with other schools but I found this conference very long and tiring as it was the day after we got our junior certificate results. We sat down for the full day which I didn’t like as I wanted to be able to move but I did enjoy our trip to knock